Can You Hear Me Now?
by KCS
Summary: A sporadic series of oneshots, revolving around various post-retirement telephone conversations. Completely random, not necessarily chronological, and more than occasionally pure fluff - you have been warned.
1. Chapter 1

_Apparently my muse is inspired more by other people's stories than my own imagination, because I thank **Igiveup** for both the inspiration and the permission to write this, a response triggered by her recent story **Lies of Deception**. _

_Pure fluff, but we all need a dosage of it once in a while, don't we? Specially dedicated in this case to **bcbdrums**, who has been ill lately. Here's hoping you feel better soon!_

_Also - most people are aware of my view of the retirement; for those of you who are not, I believe that Watson did not remarry, and that he took a practice in London around or after Holmes's retirement in 1903._

* * *

I glanced in irritation at the telephone sitting upon my desk, knowing full well who the caller was and the reason for ringing me at such a beastly hour. After twenty-two years, one would think the man could learn some tact.

"Hallo?"

"The illustrations are _horrible_ – who the devil posed for Sidney Paget?"

Thanks to this new invention, I was perfectly safe in rolling my eyes and took advantage of the fact. "Good to hear you too, Holmes. Look, the _Strand_ does not pay me to illustrate, only to write the story. What the devil's wrong now?"

"My hairline hasn't receded that much even _at present_ – and this was supposed to be set nine years ago?!"

"Write the editor a letter, but don't go calling me up after eleven at night to rant about something over which I have no control. Anything else about the story you didn't like? …Or do we have time before morning to discuss the list you no doubt have been compiling?"

"Very funny, Watson."

"I really wasn't trying to be," I sighed, laying down my pencil and leaning back in my chair, finally putting my feet on the desk and giving up any pretense of working. Abrasively insulting regarding my stories he might be, but Sherlock Holmes was still my dearest friend and as such took priority over all else, especially these days.

"Why _The Empty House_, Watson?" was the next question he posed to me, accompanied by a shuffling of turning pages.

"Beg pardon?" I yawned.

"Only the _denouement_ of the case took place in Camden House; not much else of the story did," said he. "And besides, why not call it _The Adventure of Camden House_ if you wished to draw attention to it?"

I sighed wearily, rubbing my eyes. "I wasn't referring to Camden House, Holmes."

The paper-rustling stopped. "Hmm? What then?"

I ran a hand through my hair, debating whether or not to tell him the complete truth or attempt to fabricate some other explanation - neither of which was a pleasant option when dealing with the world's only (retired) consulting detective.

"Watson? Are you there? Confound this blasted thing…WATSON!"

"For heaven's sake, Holmes, yelling louder into the mouthpiece will not magically re-connect a faulty connection – and I was _thinking_!" I said, repressing a laugh at his impatience.

"Well, what empty house were you referring to, then?" he demanded petulantly.

"Mine," I at last said softly. "Or Baker Street, depending upon your point of view."

Dead silence choked the line for the space of several seconds, during which I waited patiently instead of bellowing into the mouthpiece as he was fond of doing.

"Yes, of course…how remiss of me," I heard his subdued voice at last.

"Most of the public would assume I meant Camden House," I offered by way of explanation, twisting the telephone cord in my fingers, uneasy at not being able to see his facial expressions. "It was more for my personal tribute to the case than anything else."

"Well, that's your privilege as the author, certainly," he replied quietly.

I breathed out a sigh of relief that he was not going to start into a tirade on foolish sentimentalism. My exhalation must have been heard on the other end, for he began to laugh knowingly and forge onwards in the conversation.

"By the way, you do know you misspellt _lama_?"

I winced, for I had already seen the typographical error. "I promise, that was the typesetter, not I!"

"Mmhm."

"Is a line-by-line critique of the new series the only reason you called?" I asked, muffling a yawn.

"No. Are you yawning?"

"Yes. It _is_ nearly midnight, Holmes."

"So I observed. Why are you working so late?"

I rubbed my eyes wearily and looked down at the stack of papers covering my desk. "Just a long week. Prescriptions to record, mail to answer, next month's story to finish editing, and I haven't even looked at my patient list for tomorrow…"

"You're going to run yourself into the ground, old man. I know you are a soldier, my dear Watson, but you are not under some obligation to so earnestly fight the entire world singlehandedly."

I smiled even though he could not see me – for some reason my friend was always much more open over the telephone than he was in person; whether it was because he did not have to look at me while he spoke or because he had mellowed with age and distance I was not certain, but I was not about to argue with him regarding the pleasant alteration of his caustic personality.

"Hopefully things will calm down next week, a few of my patients are going out of town," I murmured sleepily.

"Good. Don't make me come up there to frighten them off or drag you away on a trumped-up case."

This time I laughed aloud, and I could hear the grin in his voice even through the scratchy connection. "Shouldn't you be going to bed now?"

"My work's not finished yet – some idiot with a fascination for this new invention, the telephone, keeps ringing me in the middle of the night to interrupt," I replied mischievously, removing my feet from the desk and attempting to sort through the mess of papers.

"Technically, Watson, this is not the middle of the night. If we consider the fact that this time of year shortly after the autumnal equinox, it begins to grow dark around eight and begins to grow light at seven, then technically the middle of the night would be somewhere around one – Watson, are you listening to me?"

I hastily picked up the receiver from where I had let it lie whilst I scribbled my signature on several documents as he rambled.

"Oh, absolutely."

"You were _not_, you put the phone down."

"Making theories without data, are we?"

"I heard the rush of air when you picked it back up, Watson."

I dropped my pen with a quiet moan, pinching the bridge of my nose to stave off the approaching headache.

"Look, if I hang up will you promise to turn in for the night?"

"Not necessarily," I replied truthfully. "Besides, you still haven't told me the real reason for your call. Somehow I doubt it was just to chat for an hour - that isn't your style."

"Why wouldn't it be?" He sounded quite miffed, and I chuckled.

"Because if you truly wanted to talk about nothing, you would have called at a time when you knew I would be awake, instead of chancing my being either asleep or barely coherent at this ridiculous hour."

"I might have been busy the entire evening."

"With a hive of bees?"

"_Three_ hives, and they _are_ very demanding."

"More so than any client you ever had, apparently, if they took your entire afternoon and evening."

"Well, I suppose it could have waited until morning, but I thought it worth a try to catch you tonight," he said in annoyance.

I yawned again, not bothering to repress the sound. "Thought what was worth a try?"

"What are you doing this weekend?" He always had retained the most annoying habit of answering a question with another question.

I shouldered the telephone, rubbing my head with one hand and reaching for my appointment book with the other. "Mm, let's see…nothing much, thank heaven. I was going to a lecture on the recent European developments in psychology at St. Bart's Saturday evening…"

"Bah, you are the one who should be doing the lecturing, not attending them. Forget about the boring thing. I've been practicing Mendelssohn."

I assumed the last two sentences had a logical connection, though my brain was slightly fuzzy at that point in a very long day and I was not quite sure what that connection was. "Is that a suggestion, or an invitation?"

"For someone who cannot stop from yawning his head off into the telephone, you are dreadfully pawky tonight."

"Answer the question, Holmes, for goodness' sake!"

He snorted. "An invitation, naturally. I grow weary of talking to bees all the day."

"Hence the midnight phone-calls."

"Hence the midnight phone-calls," he agreed cheerfully. "And if you _don't_ come down, you shall get another such call _tomorrow_ night."

"You know, had you set your mind to it, you could have given Charles Augustus Milverton quite a bit of competition."

"And you in turn could have given Charles _Dickens_ some had you tried writing something other than popular romantic claptrap."

"Erm…thank you, I think."

"You're welcome. Your train leaves at two tomorrow afternoon. Don't be late."

I snorted fondly. "This from the man who used to vault over the gates of Euston Station, hurl his ticket at the conductor, and jump aboard the locomotive as it was gathering speed – on multiple occasions?"

"I said don't be _late_ – I could not care one whit how _close_ you cut it, so long as you get here. I shall have a trap waiting for you."

"Last time I had to walk," I said in amusement, shoving a stack of papers into a drawer for obviously I was not going to do more on them tonight.

"That was in the summer. It's far too cold for a man of your declining age to be doing so this time of year."

"I am not even going to respond to _that_, Holmes."

"Are you done with that paperwork yet? I don't hear the rustling any more."

"I've given up for the night," I sighed wearily, leaning back in my chair and repressing another yawn.

"Excellent," he said gleefully. "Now you only have to pack, and you can go to bed."

I restrained the urge to slam my head into the desk, but only with an effort.

"Didn't I leave some of my things there last time?" I asked in dismay.

"No, but it might be a good idea," he replied helpfully. "You could leave a weekend's worth of clothing and so on in the guest room."

"You may need it for something between my stays; somehow I doubt a visitor would appreciate finding a used toothbrush on the bureau," I said sleepily.

"Well, there _is_ one permanent solution to the problem," his voice came through the line much quieter than it had been.

I sighed, fingering the telephone cord slowly. "Holmes, we've been through this a dozen times already…I just cannot do that yet; I would go stark raving mad before a month had passed, with nothing to do out there…"

"A soldier fighting to the end, eh?"

"That is not something I can discard like an old coat, Holmes – no more than you could change your temperament of an escapist," I replied gently.

"You're implying my method of dealing with the change in London was to withdraw from it, yours by staying to fight it?"

"Isn't that what it boils down to, my dear fellow?"

There was a small pause, and then a dismal sigh. "You are correct, I suppose, Watson…which is a more common occurrence than anyone would think who only knew us through those ridiculously florid memoirs."

"It always comes back to those, doesn't it?" I asked with a smile.

"You have come to expect it from me by now, have you not? I should hate to disappoint you."

"Yes," I admitted, absently twisting the telephone cord round my hand. For a moment neither of us said a word, and then I could not keep back a wider yawn than before.

"I'm hanging up now. Do go to sleep, old fellow. It would not do for you to be dispensing the wrong drugs tomorrow due to being half-dead on your feet. Not to mention you would probably end up in jail for it, and that would _completely_ ruin the weekend."

"Your concern for my welfare is staggeringly touching," I replied, smiling at the receiver.

"Always."

We both laughed with the ease that comes of a near quarter-century of close friendship, and it was with genuine reluctance that I did finally end the conversation.

"Good-night, Holmes."

"Technically, my dear fellow, it is morning now, as the actual definition of post-meridian ends with –"

I hung the receiver up on the instrument, as he knew full well I would, and grinned into the darkness. Some things never changed, among them his absolute reluctance to say goodbye to me.

He had refused outright to say goodbye when he left London, insisting desperately that it was merely an _au revoir _and hopping on the train before I had even finished saying what I wanted to (having anticipated this, I had written him a letter and stowed it in his last valise), and every time I had to return to the city from a visit to him he refused to say goodbye, only to voice a _bon voyage _before seeing me off to the trap that would take me to the station.

In addition to this, he either hung up the telephone without saying goodbye, just by ending the conversation, or else a tradition had started between us where he would launch into an inane ramble about the most random topic under the sun and I would simply put the receiver down, negating having to say a final farewell - it was practically habit now.

I turned off the single lamp and left my consulting room, trying to remember where I had put my bag upon returning last weekend, my mind already racing past the routine of the next day to land upon a country railway station platform in the heart of Sussex.

For a man who professed to be a brain without a heart for so many years, Sherlock Holmes could be endearingly sentimental at times.

And I would not have it any other way, not for all the world, past and present.


	2. Chapter 2

I glanced up in frustration as the shrill ringing persisted for a full third minute, before I slammed my pen down on the desk and finally lifted the receiver. It was well past surgery hours, but a physician's life is not his own and an errand of mercy could not be ignored – and it almost certainly was sure to be a patient at this hour.

I especially did not want to go anywhere in this vile weather, and certainly not today. But I reluctantly lifted the telephone receiver, repressing the sigh that rose unbidden to my throat, and using a pleasant practitioner's voice.

"Doctor John Watson speaking."

"Rather formal for after hours, aren't we?"

"Holmes," I sighed in abject relief.

I heard a dry chuckle trickle out of the receiver. "Was that a thank-heaven-you're-not-a-patient sigh, or a for-heaven's-sake-can't-I-have-a-moment's-peace sigh?"

I had to laugh despite matters. "The former. How are you?"

"Much better than you sound. Long day?"

"Very," I said softly, knowing he would comprehend my meaning.

I heard a faint sigh through the line and wished I could see his face, instead of a glass window looking out at a dank, rainy London.

"I'm sorry, old chap."

I shut my ledger, knowing I would not get any further on it tonight. "Thank you," I said simply. "So…how have you been? Is your cold getting any better?"

"'Pon my word, _Doctor_, do you never rest from inflicting upon other people your infernal medical advice?"

"Only when said people actually follow doctor's orders _and_ take their medicine when they are supposed to – neither of which do you have a history of doing," I replied with a smile, leaning back in my chair and absently watching the rain pound against the pane.

The snort he gave into the telephone nearly deafened me, and I held the receiver away from my ear momentarily, wincing at the vibration.

"Really, Watson…"

"Yes. And now that you've neatly deflected the question, I shall ask again. Is it getting any better?"

I heard a nasal sigh and frowned as he spoke. "Better, but I still have this confounded cough."

"Have you been staying indoors?"

"Naturally."

"I mean all the time, Holmes."

"Well, not all of the time…"

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "You simply must stop going out in the cold of a morning if you want it to get better!"

"My bees need me!" His tone was the closest to an injured sniff that he ever got, and I nearly choked in laughing.

"Your bees _need_ you? Holmes, somehow I greatly doubt they eagerly anticipate your visits every day."

Apparently I had just sacrificed a sacred cow, for his retort was quite heated and went on for probably three full minutes, expounding most eloquently to me on his bees' habits and needs, and how they _did so_ know when he was there. Honestly, had I not believed the man was absolutely serious, I should have laughed outright into the telephone.

As it was, I carefully controlled my voice when at last he paused for me to interject. "Yes, I see – I do apologise, Holmes."

"You are laughing at me, aren't you."

"I? Certainly not, Holmes!"

"Yes you are - I can hear the smile in your voice."

"Never."

I winced and held the receiver away from my ear as a loud guffaw broke through the connection.

"Oh, my dear Watson," he chortled. "You are so ridiculously gullible!"

I blinked, suddenly realising he had not actually been serious but heartlessly teasing me, and ran a hand through my hair again in exasperation.

"Holmes…"

"You know, if you persist in running your hand through your hair like that you are liable to go bald before you reach fifty-five."

I sat up with a sudden jolt, staring at the small black instrument in incredulity. "How on earth did you know –"

"Oh, come now, Watson. Sit back, for heaven's sake."

"Holmes, are you somehow watching me?"

"Unfortunately only in my mind's eye, my dear fellow," he replied quietly, and with a quantity of fondness that was a rare treat to hear.

I sighed again, but this time with more contentment than exasperation. "Am I so predictable?"

"Quite so."

I smiled, leaning back in my chair for the second time and putting my other arm behind my head. For a few seconds there was a comfortable silence from both of us. Then Holmes spoke again.

"What are you doing now? I don't hear that chair creaking any more."

"You mean you cannot _tell_ what I am doing this time?"

"Brilliantly intellectual I may be, Watson, but even I am not omniscient."

"Humble, though."

"Oh, undoubtedly."

I smirked.

"Now, what are you doing?"

"Well, I am sitting at my desk…"

"Now _that_ I could have told you, as I am talking to you on the office telephone."

"I'm sitting at my desk," I continued in annoyance, "being interrupted by the world's only retired private consulting detective…"

I heard another of his low laughs and grinned, continuing in a lighter tone. "I am actually watching the rain outside – it is pouring buckets, Holmes."

"In January? How beastly."

"Indeed," I said quietly, remembering another January ten years ago when it had been ice and snow, not rain. "It's just barely above freezing – probably the whole city will be a sheet of ice by morning."

"You have to go out in it tomorrow?"

"Not unless I choose to – which isn't looking likely, as my consulting-room has been swamped with croupy babies and coughing businessmen of late," I said ruefully.

"Which is why I endeavour to get my consultations over the telephone. It is no wonder people who regularly consult physicians are always ill – they probably contract half-a-dozen ailments in waiting-rooms alone. Some gig of yours, Doctor, to keep business flowing steadily?"

"You receive your consultations by telephone because you refuse to come up and see me," I replied with a snort.

"I do not _refuse_, I just don't choose to."

"You know, just because you don't care for the city any more doesn't mean you can never come back to it. You can still get a carriage and not a motor-taxi in the streets."

"It isn't that, Watson," his voice quieted suddenly.

"What then?"

"I…I don't exactly know, Doctor. Just…I don't belong there anymore, you know that."

"I think much of that feeling is you, Holmes, not the rest of the world," I said softly. "You might be surprised at the number of people who would welcome you gladly."

"Only one of which do I care anything about, and he knows me well enough to not be annoyed that I don't care to come, that's all."

I smiled even though he could not see me.

"What were we talking about, Holmes?"

"I've no idea. Anyway, how are you?"

"Didn't we already go over this territory?" I asked in amusement.

"You know what I mean. Truthfully, Watson." His voice was sober and gentle even despite the scratchy connection, and I automatically felt the tension that had been keeping me stiff and rigid all the day start to drain away even more.

"I'm all right, Holmes. Truly."

"You are sure?"

"Quite sure," I replied quietly.

"Would you like me to hang up and leave you alone?"

"Certainly not," I declared with emphasis. Then my voice softened as I continued. "Thank you for calling."

"I should have come up, shouldn't I?" he asked plaintively, and with a note of genuine clueless discomfort that I found endearingly amusing.

"No, there is no need – it's been ten years, after all," I said softly. "Besides, you've got to be rid of that head cold if you are to come up next month for that concert."

"I've no idea if my evening wear even _fits_ any more," he muttered grumpily.

I chuckled. "Come up the night before then and we'll take care of it."

"I still cannot believe I allowed you to talk me into that."

"I still cannot believe you allowed me to, either!"

We both laughed in unison, and I felt the last of the tension drain away with the soothing sound. I then jumped suddenly as a loud clap of thunder rocked the house.

"My word – was that thunder?"

"Mmhm," I said absently, turning the lamp down and looking out at the rain.

"Were you able to…get out today?" he asked, his voice quieting somewhat.

"Yes," I replied softly. "For a few minutes, anyway – the rain was too heavy to do so for more than that."

"I doubt she would want you getting yourself drenched, dear fellow; I am sure she understands."

For a man who professed to not feel the softer emotions, Sherlock Holmes had a remarkably accurate conception of grief and its forms and various reactions, either from years of dealing with stricken clients or from some personal experience I was not aware of. Regardless, he always had been honourable enough to exhibit the same gentleness that he showed to clients in my direction as well, after the passing of my own wife ten years ago.

I was grateful for his quiet concern and told him so, no doubt making him absolutely uncomfortable.

"Stop squirming like that, Holmes," I said in amusement as I could hear the telephone rattling on his end.

"Now _you're_ doing it!"

I laughed. "I learnt _something_ in the fifteen years I lived with you."

"Not as much as I learnt." - I believe that was what he muttered, but when I asked him to repeat the words he hastily backtracked into a different channel.

Whatever he was fabricating was drowned out by another roaring clap of thunder.

"Should you be on this thing if lightning is striking outside?" he pondered.

"I've no idea…but if this keeps up I may very well lose power."

"In other words, if you ignore me for more than ten seconds I should assume the lines are down?"

"I would think that would be the logical deduction, yes." I stifled a yawn and glanced at the clock. As if in uncanny timing with my actions, Holmes spoke.

"Hadn't you better be turning in?"

"I should be asking you the same thing. Going to tuck your bees in for the night?"

He snorted a laugh. "Erm, no, Watson. But I am going to let you go, old man. Sure you're all right?"

I smiled into the darkness. "I am now."

"Excellent!" he exclaimed brightly.

There was an abrupt click as he set down the receiver, and I grinned and put my own back into its cradle. The man absolutely hated to say goodbye, along with his dislike of all things emotional or less than perfectly logical.

And yet, he had called tonight to make certain I was all right on the anniversary of my wife's death.

Some mysteries were too much for either of us to solve.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Yes, I stole Watson's housekeeper's name from the BBC, simply because it sounds natural to me after listening to RETI so many times._

_Just a short one this time._

* * *

"Who's next, Mrs. Cooper?"

"You've no more patients, Doctor; Mr. Bartholomew was the last for today," my housekeeper replied sympathetically, stacking the ice water (which had ceased to be iced within thirty seconds of being brought in) glasses on her silver tray.

"Oh, good," I breathed, loosening my wilted collar at long last. I began to balance my ledger, finishing my notes for the day, and glanced up only briefly in some dismay when the telephone shrilled for the umpteenth time this afternoon.

Mrs. Cooper nodded understandingly and picked up the receiver for me while I went back to my notes. "Hallo? No, I'm sorry, the Doctor is unavailable right now…I _beg_ your pardon? I am Dr. Watson's housekeeper, sir, and _I_ tell you he is unavailable at the moment!"

I looked up, raising an eyebrow, and my affronted housekeeper turned to me while covering the mouthpiece with one hand.

"When I said you were unavailable, sir, he asked 'since when?' – quite indignant, too, sir," she said, utterly aghast at the caller's apparent rudeness.

I felt the corners of my mouth twitch but carefully repressed the smirk. "It's all right, Mrs. Cooper; I shall take care of it. Thank you for the refreshment."

The lady sniffed indignantly, handing the phone to me with one hand and taking the water-tray with the other. As the door closed I lifted the receiver to my ear and settled back in my chair.

"You have simply _got_ to learn some telephone etiquette, Holmes," I said in amusement.

"Well how was I to know she was your housekeeper?" he grumbled petulantly.

"You think I'd have some _other_ woman in here answering my telephone?"

"Knowing your romantic bent, my dear fellow, I would not have been as shocked as you think to discover you were examining a patient," he replied, with a very obvious hint of mischief in his tone and an even more obvious (and inappropriate) implication.

"Holmes!" I felt my face burn even though he of course could not see the fact; naturally he still knew I was for he laughed heartily at my expense. "You are insufferable!"

"Some things do not change with time," he replied cheerfully.

"Apparently not," I murmured, unfastening my collar and mopping my forehead and neck with my handkerchief. Slightly eased, I continued. "So…you grew weary of chatting with your bees and decided to try for some more challenging conversation?"

"Who said anything about your converse being more challenging?"

"Honestly, Holmes! You become more acerbic every time I speak to you," I said in weary amusement, starting to fan myself with a folded paper held in my free hand, closing my eyes for a moment and letting the pathetic breeze move my hair and cool my aching head.

"Are you all right, Doctor?"

I blinked in some surprise. "Why do you ask?"

"Your voice sounds off, somehow."

"It's just a bad connection, Holmes."

"Not _that_ bad. And you're deflecting the question – now I know I'm right. What's the matter?"

I sighed – the man was too keenly observant for his own good sometimes. "I am just tired, that's all."

"No, it isn't. Are you ill?"

"No, not really…"

"Not _really_?" I winced and held the phone away from my ear at his exclamation.

"No, it is just this horrible heat. I've been feeling a bit under the weather lately because of it, that's all. It saps one's energy, you know; I feel as if I'm melting from the inside out," I replied tiredly.

"How hot is it up there?"

"Nearing a hundred – has been for a fortnight now," I sighed. "It's like Afghanistan all over again, without the bloodshed."

I heard a muttered noise of dismay from the other end of the connection. "Are you staying hydrated?"

This time I laughed aloud at his ridiculous fussing. "Honestly, Holmes. You are speaking to a physician, for heaven's sake."

"You're deflecting the question _again_!"

"_Yes_, I _am_ staying hydrated," I answered hastily, chuckling to myself. "It's just hot as blazes out there…you wouldn't believe how many patients I've had just with heatstroke the past few days. It's been absolutely boiling."

"You sound exhausted. Come out here for the weekend – it's not anywhere close to that hot here by the beach."

I closed my eyes and continued to fan my sweltering head for a moment, my mind on the little cottage on the Downs…the heady ocean breeze, the salt air…the midnight walks along the beach…even those horrid bees; a sting was preferable to being roasted alive in a town-house in London…

"Watson. Watson! You didn't faint on me or something?" A small note of real worry had crept unawares into his voice and it startled me out of my daydreaming.

"No, no," I said hastily. "Sorry, Holmes." I heard a faint sigh of relief as I went on. "I just…I can't come down this weekend, old fellow."

"Whyever not?" he asked, and I knew without being able to see him that he was pouting like a child of ten who is told he cannot open his Christmas present until his sister has unwrapped hers.

"Because," I sighed, "the heat wave is swamping the city – people are ill everywhere."

"But your consulting-room isn't open on weekends."

"No, but I invariably will get a half-dozen calls of a Saturday from people in weather like this. I can't just leave them all in the lurch like that."

"They can see someone else! Surely you are not the only Doctor in Queen Anne Street that is remaining in that oven over the weekend?"

I grinned into the receiver at his petulant vehemence. "Holmes. I need to be here."

"No, you _don't_. I know you, Watson, and I know your ridiculous propensity for working yourself into the ground during a crisis. You'll end up keeling over by the end of next week and then you won't have _any_ patients – for who wants to consult a doctor who is himself unwell?"

"You use the most _bizarre_ logic sometimes…"

"In all seriousness, Watson. You don't sound well, old man." His tone had completely dropped all pretense of veiled concern and was now openly worried, which touched me. "Two days away from that sauna can only do you good, and there are plenty of physicians in the capital to take care of anyone who would call you."

"But…" I trailed off wistfully, running a finger under my limp collar and thinking of how wonderful it would be to spend the night just off a beach in Sussex instead of dying by inches, melting in my house in London.

"Ha, you're considering, aren't you?"

I rolled my eyes briefly before glancing at the clock. Then an unaccountable feeling of disappointment washed over me as the faint hope died, and I let my head slump into my hand in dismay. "I've missed the last train."

"No, you haven't – you could just make it if you left now, it's only a ten minute ride to the station in a fast cab from your house," he said excitedly.

"But…I've no luggage packed!"

"Remember I told you to leave some things behind last time? You did, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, but…my patients…"

"You can call them all or call your housekeeper when you get here."

"Yes, but still…"

"Leave. _Now_," he ordered peremptorily, and before I could protest further there was a click and the line had gone dead.

I set the receiver down, mopping my forehead uncertainly and staring at the phone for a moment, wondering if I had imagined the conversation as a heat-induced auditory hallucination.

Then I shouted for Mrs. Cooper to fetch me a cab whilst I located my lightest coat and hat. I never had been one to disobey a direct order from Sherlock Holmes.


	4. Chapter 4

I sat patiently, waiting for the operator to connect me with my party, and absently doodled on the margin of the paper in front of me, my pencil making rather a mess of the clean white sheet.

I heard the line connect, and then the telephone began to ring…and ring…and ring…and ring…and then finally there was a slight banging and scrambling noise as the connection was made and the receiver picked up.

"Yes, hallo!" a familiarly annoyed voice sounded.

"Holmes?"

"Speaking. Who else would it be?" he demanded irritably.

I raised an eyebrow out of habit before remembering he could not see the familiar gesture. "You needn't be snappish about it. How was I to know it was you, when you bellow like that loudly enough to be heard by me in London _without_ the aid of a 'phone?"

"You really think _I_ would have a visitor, much less one that I would allow to touch my things, Doctor?" he asked, obviously peeved for some reason.

All right, two could play at the affronted game. "Well, you did say you were getting rather friendly with that Stackhurst fellow of late," I sniffed injuriously, purposely infusing my voice with palpable jealousy and a bit of hurt.

There was a dead awkward silence for a moment on the line, and I smirked, stifling the laugh that rose in the back of my throat.

"My dear Watson…"

"Is he there now? _That_ is why you're irritated to have to take a call, Holmes!"

"Watson, I –"

"Very well, I shall hang up then – it wasn't important anyhow," I went on mercilessly, covering my mouth to hide the fact that I was grinning outright and instead attempting to sound upset.

Either I was a better actor than I thought, or the connection was too faulty for him to tell otherwise, or he was legitimately distraught and did not catch on to my prevaricating. I suspected the latter when he finally did speak…or shouted, as the case was.

"Watson, will you for the love of heaven stop that blathering for a moment?!"

I winced and held the receiver away from my ear, but too late…I was half-deafened now. But it had been worth it, I believed, to hear the man backpedal as he was doing at the moment, quite panicked apparently.

"He _isn't_ here, and I am most definitely _not_ as you put it, _friendly_ with him anyway!" he retorted emphatically, and the glare upon his face seeped through the line quite clearly. "We merely discuss education or the like on the _rare_ times we run into each other!"

"Mmhm." I grinned and twirled my pencil round my fingers in triumph. Not often did I accomplish a good job of nettling the world's sharpest observer.

"You have to believe me!"

"Do I?"

"Watsonnnn…" he moaned desperately, in the closest thing to a whine that his voice could twist itself into.

I could not hold back any longer and began to laugh, quite heartily. I heard muffled swearing on the other end of the connection before he growled out, "I _hate_ it when you do that!"

"Yes, I know. But I get so little entertainment these days that I am forced to make my own whenever possible," I replied mischievously, absently drawing on the side of the still-blank paper. The doodle turned into a lopsided street sign, and I had distractedly labeled it _Baker_ _Street_ before realising with a jolt what I was doing.

"Hmph," he snarled, and I could quite obviously hear the scowl in his voice.

"Why so irritable, Holmes?"

"I'm _not_ irritable."

I rolled my eyes out of pure habit. "Yes, yes, I know, you never are. Now why are you irritable?"

I heard an annoyed snort and then a pause, before he went on, quite grudgingly. "I was in the middle of something when you called, that's all."

"Oh? In the middle of what?"

"Nothing," he snapped brusquely.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Holmes. I shall just hang up if you want to be like that," I said in some annoyance.

"No, wait!"

Ha, I had struck a nerve. I smiled and continued. "What then? Why are you being so cagey – even for you?"

"If you must know, one of my bees stung me just now!" he bellowed angrily, and I again had to hold the receiver away from my ear to prevent becoming fully deaf temporarily. Which action was a fortunate thing for him, because that no doubt cut down the probability that he would hear my compulsive laughter.

"One of them _stung_ you?" I managed to choke out at last.

"Yes!" he cried, obviously quite insulted. "Of all the _nerve_!"

"Well you can take comfort in the fact that he paid dearly for his precipitous action," I said, struggling to keep the high amusement out of my voice.

"This is _not_ humorous, Doctor," he growled.

"No, no, of course not, Holmes," I gulped and tried to bring my face back under control so that he could not tell from my voice that I was still laughing at his ironic predicament. "Did you put something on the sting?"

"I was _trying_ to when you called," he mumbled.

"Oh…well, put me down then and come back when you're done," I suggested sensibly.

"No, it can wait," he sighed into the telephone. "I'm sorry I was irritable."

"Well, you've every right to be if one of your pets got loose in your house and was wreaking vengeance upon its master," I replied with a perfectly straight face, belatedly realising that…had he just _apologised_ to me?

"They are not my _pets_; they are my _hobby_!" he retorted in annoyance. "You make it sound as if I name each of them and take them out for walks!"

"You _don't_?" I asked in feigned surprise.

"Go to blazes, Watson" I believe was what he consequently said, though he denied it a moment later when I called him on the fact in a deal of amusement.

"Look, if you really have no reason for calling, I have a large and painful swelling on my neck that requires tending to, Doctor," he finally snapped with an evident frown.

"Isn't wanting to talk to you enough of a reason?" I asked quietly.

I received another deathly silence, during which he no doubt was attempting to think up a suitable reply to that particular sentiment. I let him splutter for a minute or two before continuing, restraining the smirk that twitched at my moustache.

"That isn't why I called, I was just curious if you would consider it enough of a reason."

"You're incorrigible, Watson," he muttered, but without that former annoyance.

I grinned and continued. "No, I was wondering if you had any objections to my writing up the Charles Augustus Milverton business for the _Strand_ next month."

"Has the statute of limitations for breaking and entering run out?"

"Yes, and besides no one can prove it isn't fiction."

"Then I really could not care less what florid adventure you do…of course choose _nom de guerres_ for my client and the murderess," he admonished dryly. "The statute for murder is a few more years yet I fancy."

"You really think I would drag the names of two noble families into a work of romantic fiction, murder and blackmail or not?" I asked indignantly.

"Well you have no and never have had any qualms about dragging _my_ name into it," he retorted.

"You are not a noble family that can be ruined by slander, nor are you a lady…unless I have missed something very vital in those twenty-two years of our association," I added in mock thoughtfulness.

"I should hope that even your alter-ego, my blundering magazine foil, is not _that _blind," he answered with a smirk that fairly dripped from the receiver.

"I'm not sure I enjoy the knowledge that I'll go down in history merely as a fan to increase your light to glow even brighter than it really was."

"Watson. You were never merely a fan to my flame – more like kerosene and a match to my damp wood," he replied thoughtfully.

I smiled at the oblique compliment and relaxed for the first time in the conversation. "And I'm still doing my best to see that the fire doesn't go out, not completely, my dear fellow," I replied softly.

"Hence the elaborate drivel in the local family magazine."

"Hence the best-selling romantic literature of our day," I corrected firmly.

"Literature, my eye. You are every whit as bad as H.G. Wells and Bram Stoker and all those others, and the world simply hasn't caught on yet that popular opinion is fickle and your popularity won't last much longer."

"And speaking of _romantic_ literature," I said slyly, ignoring the all-too-familiar and therefore ineffectual tirade, "I cannot wait to go into the bit in the Milverton case about your lovely little fiancée…_Aggie_, I think you said her name was? I haven't my notebook with me so I cannot be certain…"

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Holmes, it's a relevant plot point; I have to use it or the thing won't make sense," I said in high amusement, beginning to scribble a vague story outline on my paper.

"I don't care – make something up!"

"Certainly not! You already told me I could do the case, and you're not going to go back on that."

"But my reputation! They're going to think I'm a complete cad!"

"Who is?"

"Your thousands of readers!"

"Then you do recognise that I have them, eh?"

"Theoretically, yes – but that's a moot point. Look, Watson…"

"Holmes, for heaven's sake," I said in some exasperation. "If they've already read three full-length novels about you and over twenty-five short stories, do you really think you'll lose people's respect over one indiscretion in a case?"

I heard a small whimper. "But…"

"Oh, buck up, old man. I'll paint you in a favorable light, even make it so that you have a hated rival that undoubtedly seized your absence to take the girl from you. All right?"

"No details, Watson, for the love of heaven…"

"It's a _family_ magazine, Holmes," I replied dryly. "I couldn't put many of your _details_, as you put it, in there without it being censored."

"Oh, good," I heard him sigh with abject relief, and there was a creaking as he obviously allowed himself to sit back in his chair. "What are you going to call it?"

"Mm…_The Adventure of the King of the Blackmailers_?" I suggested, scribbling it down to see how the title looked.

"Ugh."

"What's wrong with that?" I asked, a little nettled.

"It is so…flamboyant," he said in disgust.

"Well you have only yourself to thank, since you were the one who dubbed Milverton that!" I retorted.

"Yes, well…anyway…" I could fairly hear him blushing and I grinned.

"How about _The Worst Man in London_?" I suggested. "You _also_ called him that, if you recall."

"Oh, come, Watson. Is there no sensible approach to your picking a title?"

"Well what would _you_ call it, then?" I asked, quite miffed by this point in the conversation.

"I should think the obvious answer would be _The_ _Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton_, would it not?"

I made a noise of disgust. "Really, Holmes."

"I think it is perfectly fine."

"And the rest of the literate world will think it is perfectly _boring_."

"Well what then?"

"Hmm…I suppose I could call it _The_ _Adventure of the Dallying Detective_…" I said in a streak of wicked mischief.

"You do, and I shall write up the case of that amorous French cantina dancer's missing costume – you remember, back in July '96? – and send it to the _Strand_ myself, Watson."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "You wouldn't!"

"My dear fellow, you were just discussing the King of the Blackmailers, and I studied his methods for years as you well know. Are willing to try me on that?"

I gulped uneasily, running a finger under my collar. "All right, I'll call it your horrible title. But you told me you burnt that file and that photograph!"

"I _also_ told you I was dying of one of Culverton Smith's diseases back in 1890 and you trustingly believed every word," he replied, the evil amusement in his voice dripping out of my telephone onto my story outline.

"There are times when I absolutely despise you, Sherlock Holmes," I said through clenched teeth. "Sometimes I believe my patience with you cannot be rivaled in all of history…"

"It cannot. Which is one of your more endearing characteristics," he replied softly, hanging up the telephone before I could regain my speechless voice to answer that particular compliment.

I sighed, leaning my head in my hand and staring at my story outline, debating for a moment whether or not to ring him back. I decided against it, for I knew that he was well aware I had not been serious with my next to last statement and also because I was well aware that if he had just hung up the telephone he probably would not answer it again if I tried.

I felt a small smirk tug at my lips as I began the next-to-last draft of my manuscript, scrawling a large emphatic _The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton_ across the top of the page.

Honestly. And the man called my literary sensibilities rubbish.


	5. Chapter 5

_Can be read alone, or as a continuation of the previous one..._

* * *

"Come on, come on…" I muttered in frustration as the line buzzed again and yet again. I had just about hung up in despair when the receiver was lifted and an infuriatingly calm voice greeted me.

"Hallo?"

"Holmes, where the devil have you been?" I demanded. "I've been ringing you every five minutes for the last hour!"

"I was outside with my bees, taking notes – you know there's nothing out of the ordinary about that," he replied, his tone conveying his obvious annoyance at my impatience. "What could possibly have been _that_ urgent?"

I sighed and slumped back into my seat; I had been standing, not expecting him to actually answer the phone. He must have deduced my movements from the noises, for his voice suddenly lost its irritation and took on a (for him) clear note of worry.

"What's the matter?"

"We…have a situation," I moaned, grasping my hair in one hand and making a conscious effort not to tear it out at the roots.

"We?" he inquired, instantly wary.

"Yes, we," I retorted. "You're in it as much as I."

"Will you come to the point?" He no longer sounded concerned but had swung back to annoyance. "You have the most roundabout way of expressing crucial facts of anyone I have ever come across!"

"Don't get snippy with me, Holmes. I am very much _not_ in the mood," I growled, rubbing my forehead with my free hand.

"Then what is wrong?" he asked again, even less patiently than before.

I sighed. "I'm looking at a letter from our old friend Lestrade. Remember him?"

"My dear Watson, retirement does not necessarily indicate that one is a dotard. My memory remains unimpaired."

"He retired just after you did," I said with an effort to control my patience.

"What of it?"

"He…is not overly thrilled with my last story in the _Strand_," I muttered.

"Which was?"

"You know full well what it was – I bought you a subscription to the magazine and don't try to tell me you don't read them, I know you do," I said dryly.

"Only to critique them and have something to discuss besides the mating habits of the queen bee when you come to visit."

"Don't distract me. You know what it was – he isn't at all thrilled at learning his suspicions of us were correct in that Milverton business," I said unhappily.

"Well he can't get us on burglary, the statute ran out long ago – that was what, twenty years ago?"

"Seventeen."

"Whatever."

"Holmes, we withheld vital evidence, shielded a murderer –"

"Executioner."

"Not in the eyes of the law. We were accessories after the fact, Holmes!"

"Oh…OH…"

"Exactly. The statue for murder hasn't run out yet, he says," I said worriedly.

"Did you check him?"

"Not yet, that's why I've been trying to get you – you are supposed to be the expert for British law processes!"

"Well you shall pardon me if I do not have the entire code memorised to date, Doctor," he retorted with some heat.

"Supposing he is correct, and the statute has not run out," I asked worriedly.

"Surely you are jesting with me – he's blackmailing us? US?"

"For all intents and purposes, yes," I sighed, rubbing my temples in an effort to relieve the headache that had been throbbing there since I had received the offending epistle this morning.

I heard a burst of colourful French swearing come through the line, but that did nothing to ease my problem (or my headache). "What the blazes does he _want_?" Holmes yowled at last.

"You are not going to believe or like this…"

"Oh, _lovely_. Just give me the facts, Watson."

"He wants me to make my next story in the Strand one that _not only_ paints him in a good light but that puts you and him _working together..._and under very friendly terms," I muttered through clenched teeth.

"WHAT?"

I winced and held the receiver away from my ear as his incensed voice rattled the connection's very roots in another string of expletives he could only have learnt in his years prowling the London dockyards.

"Look, I'm just telling you what he said!" I interjected when he had to stop his bellowing for breath.

"You cannot be serious – and if you don't write it he will re-open the Milverton case? He is _retired_; surely he cannot do that!"

"No, but he can see that it's done by someone else," I countered with a sinking feeling of dismay.

"The charge would never stick," Holmes's protesting voice scratched through the line, albeit more feebly. "There is no possible way. That florid tale was published as a work of fiction, and there were no witnesses to our complicity in the real story. A fictitious story cannot be held as concrete evidence; there is no way the charge would stick in a court of law, and besides I cannot see them dredging that up and attempting to figure out who really did kill that odious man."

"Probably – but do you want to spend several weeks thrashing it out in the police-court and the tabloids, though?" I asked pointedly.

I heard an abysmal moan. "You'd better write that story."

"But…what possible story could I do that has you both working together where you did not show him up as an idiot in front of at least a dozen people?" I asked, thumbing through my post-Reichenbach files for the tenth time in the last hour.

"Mm…well, any case you do you're going to have to edit it _considerably_ if you want to paint him in a good light," he said with a derisive snort that tickled my ear.

"Naturally," I sighed. "I need one where he was fairly prominent. You were so stuck on Stanley Hopkins there for a while that poor Lestrade got the short end of your brain-power on more than one occasion, Holmes."

"That is entirely untrue – I gave help equally to _all_ those bumbling idiots," he cried indignantly.

"Oh, _please_." I rolled my eyes since he could not see me and continued, ignoring him. "What about the case of the barber, the tinned salmon, and the striped waistcoat?"

"I am not certain even _your_ significant powers of embellishment could paint Lestrade in a good light in that atrocity," he retorted, and I could hear the smirk in his voice at the remembrance.

"Mm…the adventure of the stolen underground locomotive?"

"Oh, heavens no! That was thoroughly embarrassing for all of us."

"Then I am open to suggestions, Holmes…" I trailed off with a moan, slamming the files down on my desk in a rather childish tantrum.

"_Calm down,_ and let us think for a moment," he said pensively. "Something during those first few years after my return from the dead would work…"

"I do wish you would stop referring to yourself during that period as _dead_," I sighed. "It is rather ghoulish."

"Stop distracting me. Hmm…there was the case of the Bulgarian Minister's substituted watch-chain…"

"Too political, I can't put that in there without changing every blasted name in the thing."

"What about the one where both of us ended up in the Serpentine diving for the murder weapon Lestrade accidentally dropped over the side of the row-boat?"

"You think I can make that paint him in a favorable light?"

"Then just _make up_ a bloody story, Doctor!"

"Holmes…you-are-not-help-ing-mat-ters…" I enunciated through grinding teeth, on the edge of my last raw nerve by this point.

"What about the Abergavenny Murder business?"

"Too gory for a family magazine, and if I take the violence out it is no longer an interesting case. Besides, Lestrade only came in on the climax, not the entire story."

"Ha!" he shouted into the receiver so loudly I nearly fell out of my chair. "What about that Black Pearl of the Borgias affair?"

I paused for a moment and shook the ringing out of my ear before shuffling through the papers. "What year was that?"

"I've absolutely no idea. You're the one who kept the files organised in Baker Street, not I. After you got married I never could locate a thing that wasn't in my common-place books."

"Ah, here it is. Hmm…I suppose that might work," I mused thoughtfully, scanning the file with some eagerness.

"Make it work. And you had better make it good, too – there is no possible way I can afford to have to come up to London for a while to stand in court for a seventeen-year-old offense."

"Would that be such a bad thing?" I asked wistfully. "Coming up, I mean, not the dock."

"Watson, don't start, please…" he pleaded softly.

"I'm sorry…it's just that you have never come up to see me," I murmured, scribbling down ideas for the story and wondering how much I would have to change it to make it appease that devious little retired Scotland Yarder. "I do have a spare room as well as you do, you know…and this house gets very lonely of an evening."

I heard a melancholy sigh on the other end of the line, but other than that only the scratching of my pen broke the silence for a moment.

"I suppose I could come up sometime," I heard him mumble finally, but so low that I could barely decipher the words.

"Really?" I asked in surprise, pausing in my scribbling.

"I suppose," he growled before changing the subject abruptly, cutting off any chance I had to coax a definite answer from him. "Do you suppose Lestrade really would have that case re-opened? I mean…seriously, how old is he now?"

"Twelve years older than I, so…"

"Sixty-four? Good Lord…getting crotchety, is he?"

"If he is, I have to say he deserves to be after all those years at the Yard. Between Tobias Gregson's spite and your superciliousness, the poor fellow was bounced back and forth like a lawn tennis ball."

"Supercilious? I? I very much resent that, Doctor!"

"Yes, the truth is a bit painful, is it not?" I asked dryly, scribbling down an idea for the end of the tale that would paint _both_ men in a better light. Surely that would be preferable – perhaps Holmes would not be as irritated if I made him look a trifle more human.

_Then again_, I thought ruefully as he launched into an irritated tirade about why superiourity did not constitute insufferableness, _perhaps he would_.

"And furthermore, I never said that I – Watson, are you even listening to me?" his voice slapped out of the line to box my ears loudly.

"Not really, to be quite forthright. I called you for help with my problem, not to be a receptacle for your venting twenty years' worth of irritation with a man who had no _choice_ as to whether or not he accepted a case – _he_ got paid to take what he got, not what _came_ to him, as you did," I said pointedly, and rather sternly.

There was a very, very dead silence on the other end of the line.

"You are horridly adept at spoiling a man's black temper, you know that?"

"One of my more subtle virtues, yes, and one that was perfected through years of arduous practice in your company," I retorted with a hint of a grin, sketching out a short story outline that might just work.

I heard a quiet sigh. "I do miss that, you know," he said softly.

I stopped with my pen poised to dot an _i_. "Miss what?"

"Your dissipating my verbal storm clouds so easily. Now when I am depressed or in a temper I have only my bees to help me through it," he replied softly.

"I hope that is indeed all you use to help you through it," I said, also quietly but firmly as well.

"My word has not been broken on that matter yet, Doctor," he reassured me.

I set down my pen, unable to concentrate fully on two things and choosing the more important for the present. "You know I am always just a call away, Holmes, if you ever need me."

"I know," his voice had dropped to a barely audible murmur. "But this infernal instrument is a rather poor substitute for the genuine article."

"Yes, I know," I answered with a slow smile. "You're unable to read my features, and by that means my mind, now that you can't see me. I cannot say I miss having you barge into my brain like you used to do so often."

He chuckled, for which I was glad – he had sounded rather melancholy there for a few moments. There was a moment or two of more comfortable silence, during which I picked up my pen and began filling in case details – names and places and events and so on.

"What are you writing, Watson?"

"Outline for that case," I said absently. "I think I can make it work."

"Of course you can. I shall let you get to it, then…" he trailed off slowly but the connection did not go dead. I waited a few moments and then paused, setting my pen down with a small clink.

"Why did you stop writing?" his voice came back on interestedly.

"I've something better to do with my time for the present," I replied, leaning my chair back and propping my feet up on the corner of my desk, squirming down into a comfortable position.

"More important than those precious stories of yours?" he gasped in (patently) feigned shock. "My word, Watson, what on _earth_ could it be?"

I grinned into the receiver even though he could not see the action.

"So tell me, my dear chap, how have you been?"


	6. Chapter 6

That October 31st was the wettest, darkest night we had had thus far in the season. At the moment, the rain had stopped, but thunder still rolled from somewhere in the city and occasional flashes of lightning did more to disrupt my thinking than did my imagination, which was doing a fair job of turning every shadow in the room into a ghostly apparition on this one night of the year when men were permitted to leave the bounds of reason and venture into realms in which they normally would not allow their minds to linger.

I doubt that anyone will blame me when I say that I jumped half out of my chair when the telephone shrilled loudly, just as I had reached a crucial part in the story I was composing.

Recovering my nerve, I ran a hand through my hair and picked up the receiver.

"Hallo?"

"I vould like to zhpeak vith Doktor Zhon Vatson, if you pleass."

I stifled a snicker, covering my mouth with one hand. "This is he."

"Vun hour…" the sepulchral voice dripped out of my receiver.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Vun hour until midnight, Doktor…zhe vitching hour…" the voice intoned.

I pulled the receiver away from my mouth so that I could laugh without being heard on the other end. My silence must have alarmed the caller, for after a moment of nothing there was a timorous, "Doktor?"

"I'm sorry," I gasped, wiping my eyes, "You'll have to pardon me, Holmes; I was hiding under the desk in abject terror."

"Watsonnn…" the pout in his voice was more than evident. "You've ruined it!"

"Well, I did apologise," I chortled, grinning even though he could not see me.

"How did you know it was I?" he asked in annoyance.

"I should hope none of my other acquaintances would have the idea to call me up after eleven on All Hallow's Eve and speak to me in a very poor Transylvanian accent," I replied with a grin.

"Hmph."

"Besides, old fellow," I went on, allowing my tone to soften. "No one says the name 'Doctor John Watson' quite like Sherlock Holmes, accent notwithstanding."

"Rubbish. I don't know why I even bother."

"Oh, come, Holmes," I replied, quite amused at his petulance. "Did you really expect me to be taken in by that?"

"No, but you could have played along for a few more minutes!" he retorted, and I could hear the scowl in his voice.

"I'm sorry, old man."

"Yes, no doubt," he replied dryly.

I tried out of respect for his annoyance to stop snickering, but when he finally gave a snort of amusement into the phone I could not repress it any longer and we both ended up laughing like two school-children.

"I cannot imagine what anyone is thinking who is listening to this call," I remarked with a smile.

"Someone is listening?" Holmes demanded.

"Well, these lines are not overly secure – anything is possible." I shrugged, forgetting he could not see the motion.

"Oh, wonderful," he moaned.

"Come, come, that shouldn't change anything. What are you up to this All Hallow's Eve, Holmes? Carving a jack-o-lantern out of an empty beehive?"

"You are _so_ very funny, Watson. I am positively _beside_ myself with laughter."

I stifled a snicker. "Then what are you doing?"

"Actually, I have a favor to ask of you, my very good fellow."

His voice was so placidly innocent and his fond words so patently false that I was immediately on my guard.

"Why do I have the feeling I am not going to like this?"

"Because you are naturally suspicious by nature, my dear Watson," he replied cheerfully. "Now. You remember that school a few miles away from my cottage?"

"The _Gables_, wasn't it?"

"Yes, quite. Well they are having some sort of ridiculous festivity tonight in honour of this holiday and the headmaster asked if I would come down and…well…"

"And what?" I asked curiously.

"And tell the lads a story," he mumbled reluctantly.

I smiled. "And you were foolish enough to agree and now you are panicking, is that it?"

"Stunning diagnosis, Doctor. Can you help me?"

"With what, your storytelling? Have you a sufficiently gruesome adventure in mind?"

"I was going to tell them the story of the giant rat of Sumatra…"

"Holmes, you cannot be serious!" I gasped, aghast.

"Well, Stackhurst wanted one that was…what was the word he used…" Holmes pondered, obviously frowning in trying to remember.

"Grotesque?" I suggested.

"No…"

"Frightening?"

"Not quite…"

"Chilling?"

"No…creepy! That was the word," Holmes said triumphantly.

"_Creepy_?" I asked in amusement.

"Well, that was what he said the boys told him, anyway."

"Hmm. Well, if you're worried about your ability to spin a yarn off the top of your head, just read them the Hound of the Baskervilles," I suggested after a moment's thought.

"No good."

"Whyever not?" I demanded, quite miffed at his attitude about my pet story.

"Because every lad in that school gets the _Strand_ _Magazine_, Watson," Holmes replied with an air of longsufferance. "I cannot tell you how many times I have been beset upon on my walks by eager youngsters wanting me to autograph the blasted things."

I chuckled. "Such is the price of fame, old fellow."

"Hmph. Seriously, Watson, I have to leave in an hour – what am I going to tell them?"

"Something ghostly, Holmes…or having a brush with the supernatural," I suggested. "What about that little problem of the Bleeding Sword of MacDougall Castle, back in…'88, was it?"

"Late '87, five months or so before your marriage. Your fiancée stomped around Baker Street for a quarter of an hour and nearly hit me over the head with a vase when she heard what I had dragged you into."

"Ah yes. That one would work."

"Too long and drawn-out, Watson, and besides these lads care nothing for the finer points of detection," he moaned helplessly.

"You see why I have to embellish my stories in the _Strand_? A good portion of my readers could not care less about your precious deduction," I pointed out with wicked glee.

"That is beside the point, Watson. Come on, old chap; be a sport – what am I going to do?"

"Well…at the moment I'm writing up the Ferguson case. Vampirism in the heart of Sussex…that would be perfect, Holmes! Atmospheric, since it wasn't that far from your current location, with the appropriate holiday flair, and the real criminal being a lad probably those boy's age – it is perfect!"

"Hmm…" I could fairly hear his mind whirring to recall the details of the case. "That might work…bah, it will have to as I've no more time to decide. What are you going to call the case when you are finished with it?"

"Tentatively, the _Sussex Vampire_," I replied with a smirk.

He snorted. "Oh, lovely."

"No one asked for your opinion on the title, Holmes. Tell the lads they get a preview for next month's issue."

"I hate to steal your thunder like that, Doctor…" he pondered with a note of plaintiveness.

"Since when have you been concerned with that?" I retorted fondly.

"Well, still…"

"Oh, go on, old chap," I replied with a smile. "And do try to enjoy yourself, eh?"

"I wish you could have come down," he mumbled quietly.

"You know I can't miss that many weekends in a month, not this time of year – I would not have a practice left upon my return if I did," I answered with very little enthusiasm.

"Would that be such a bad thing?"

"Yes." I chuckled at his hopeful tone. "I am not yet ready to spend the rest of my life dodging your bees and transcribing notes for your handbook of detection and analysis, Holmes."

He laughed. "Very well. But you are still coming down next weekend, correct?"

"I shall be there, you may count on it."

"I _am_," he retorted pointedly. "So do not miss the train."

"One of these days I am going to buy a motor-car, Holmes, and I shan't have to take the thing any more."

"You are not serious."

"Perfectly."

He made a noise of deep disgust and I grinned. "Progress is not necessarily a bad thing, Holmes."

"It is when sensible middle-aged gentlemen of my acquaintance seriously consider driving round in those death-traps!"

"Holmes, if we did not have progress then I would not be able to talk to you right now," I pointed out sensibly.

There was a slight pause before a muttered "Humph."

I smiled again but then jumped as an enormous peal of thunder rocked the house. My barely audible gasp of surprise must have been picked up by his keen hearing, however, for he chuckled wickedly.

"Not getting jumpy close to midnight, are you, Doctor?"

"Certainly not," I retorted, shifting in my chair in embarrassment.

"It doesn't _bother_ you to be _all_ _aloooone_ in that house at the witching hour?"

"Holmes, I do not find you to be amusing," I warned him.

"You mean your imagination doesn't twist those shadows in your consulting room into ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night…you don't hear noises in your back bedrooms? No footsteps, doors creaking, nothing?"

I felt my skin start to crawl and hastily pulled my imagination back under control. "Holmes, stop it!"

He began to laugh heartily, and I scowled. "Go haunt some other poor soul's nightmares, Holmes."

"I shall, Watson, I shall. I must run anyhow; Stackhurst will murder me if I am late to judge the apple-bobbing contest."

"The _what_?" I asked incredulously, my poor finite brain failing to comprehend the mental image of the man I knew being willing to judge a child's party game.

"Well if I am to be forced to be there anyway, I might as well make myself useful," he protested, and I could tell he was wriggling in some embarrassment.

I smiled at his discomfort. "I think it's very sweet of you, Holmes," I said with a not entirely straight face.

"Ugh. Go to bed, Watson. You have obviously been up writing for far too long."

"Actually, on that I concur. You'd best run along, Holmes, or they may start without you," I yawned, laying down my pen for the night.

"I hate these things," he muttered grumpily. "Party gatherings are of no enjoyment at all without you around to cover up for my social ineptitude."

I grinned at the somewhat oblique compliment. "Good night, Holmes."

"Good night, my dear fellow. Oh, and Watson?"

"Yes?" I asked, pausing in putting down the receiver.

"Do not neglect to check under your bed for ghosts – it is now _midnight_," he intoned in a low funereal whisper, just as the clock in my consulting-room began to strike twelve.

I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck as he began to give a weird, unearthly, almost maniacal laugh, and I hastily slammed the receiver of the telephone down into its cradle. Hard.

Stackhurst had no idea what terrors he had just unleashed on those poor, unsuspecting children.


	7. Chapter 7

_What can I say? 'Tis the season for fluff. This is for PGF, who did so much to help me break through my writer's block._

* * *

I closed the door of my consulting-room behind me and only then gave vent to the long, weary sigh that had been waiting to be released for…how long had it been? Two days? Three? But there was no time for further expressions of reprieve. I strode straight to my desk and picked up the telephone with one hand, giving the by-now memorised number to the operator and then stretching the phone cord to its maximum length as I began to rummage through my supplies to replenish my black bag's depleted contents.

I had only just located the last supply of clean linens I had when the receiver crackled to life in my ear.

"Yes, hallo?"

"Holmes?"

"My dear Watson, I hardly expected to hear from you this morning." He sounded rather cheerful about the fact, over which I winced visibly for I knew he was not going to be so amiable about the news I bore. "Should you not be packing, though?"

"Holmes…" I exhaled slowly, shut the drawer, stuffed the cloths into my bag, and then returned the entire kit to my desk.

He no doubt could tell from my tone that something was amiss, for the almost uncharacteristic sunny pitch of his own voice instantly darkened in an impending cloudburst. "What's wrong."

"I…" The room tilted dizzily for a moment and I made haste to collapse into my chair to await its return to normality. I rubbed my eyes and continued. "Holmes…I am afraid I cannot make it down there tonight."

As I had expected, the silence on the line was more jarring than the rumble of the Underground passing nearby. Before he could respond, however, I was hurrying onward, endeavouring to formulate the apology I knew he would expect, yea _demand_, though I really had no choice in the matter.

"Holmes, I am truly sorry…I know that this was already planned, and to be quite honest I was rather excited about staying the holidays down there, heaven knows I was…but I have a patient, it is a crisis, and I just cannot pack up and leave London on a day like this…I know that –"

"_Watson_." His voice sliced through the earpiece, interrupting me sharply, and I fell into silent misery.

"What." I began to grope through a nearby drawer for an unused glass bottle that I could have filled at the druggist's. I only just remembered that, as the date was Christmas Eve, I had better ensure that I reached the shop before it closed, as a delay in rousting the man from his holiday merrymaking could be both costly to my patient and frustrating to both me and the poor fellow's family.

"You are rambling, Doctor," Holmes's voice stated matter-of-factly in my ear, though it was not devoid of a sense of gentleness. "When was the last time that you slept, my dear fellow?"

"I've no idea…" I muttered absently.

"_What_?!"

I winced and held the receiver from my ear an inch or two. "No time, Holmes – besides, that is why I am home now, I'm going to get an hour or two nap before…" I trailed off as a fresh wave of slight vertigo trickled over my senses. I located the bottle with haste and then reseated myself, taking a small drink from my flask to stave off the effects of sleep deprivation and irregular meals.

And in the process, completely forgetting that I had Sherlock Holmes on the other end of the telephone.

That is, until he shouted so loudly that it startled me into nearly dropping the brandy.

"Watson! Are you all right?" he bellowed with that roar that could (and had, on more than one occasion) waken the entire 200 block of Baker Street on a clear morning.

"Yes, yes," I hastily replied, setting down the flask and carefully replacing the cap, noting with a detached medical eye that my hand was beginning to shake slightly from exhaustion; that did not bode well for the upcoming midnight vigil.

Either the alcohol or else the unusual concern from my friend caused me to feel slightly more steady than I had before reaching home, however, and my voice evened into a more controlled tone as I answered him. "My apologies, Holmes, I was…distracted."

He was not to be fooled by my measured tone, however. "You do not sound at all well, Watson. What has been going on?" he asked, an audible colour of worry tingeing his voice.

"It is – was – a case of appendicitis," I began wearily, leaning back in my chair and closing my eyes. "One of my patients has a little seven-year-old girl. The poor child's operation proceeded perfectly, but now infection has unexpectedly set in. Holmes, I can't abandon a patient when the child's fever is well over 102. It's going to peak tonight I think, and I just can't –"

"Watson, for the love of heaven!" he replied sharply, in obvious exasperation. "You need not justify the thing to me."

"I am still sorry, though," I murmured, knowing and also being able to with little effort perceive from his voice that he was indeed sorely disappointed, though his words probably would never betray the fact even to me.

To my enormous surprise, he proved me to be mistaken in my assumptions yet again with his next words. "So am I, my dear fellow. I freely admit I was looking forward to spending the holidays with my old friend and biographer," his voice rang quietly in my ear. "But far be it from me to presume to order my loneliness to trump your professional Oath."

"Thank you." I breathed out in a long sigh and rubbed my gritty eyes. "I shall come down this weekend, then, or as soon as I can, and we can celebrate then…if that is all right with you…I wish the trains ran on Christmas Day, because with any luck the little one will be out of danger tomorrow…" I suddenly realised I was rambling again, but he was good enough not to mention the somewhat embarrassing fact.

"Unfortunately for travelers, the engineers deserve a holiday as well, my dear chap," Holmes replied graciously. "However inconvenient that may be for a retired consulting detective and his biographer, that is the way of our society. I shall have to be satisfied with reading to my bees from Dickens's _Christmas Carol_, eh?"

It was an obvious, and rather pathetic, effort to cheer one or both of us, and I managed a bleak chuckle for his pains. "I didn't even know you owned a copy of the thing, Holmes."

"Most certainly not, but I believe my housekeeper possesses one somewhere in her assortment of romantic literature, which by the way includes two bound volumes of _your_ florid writings," he replied blithely, though his tone rang hollow with false cheerfulness.

I was far too weary to even rise to his bait regarding my poor scribblings in the _Strand._ "Holmes…I truly am sorry," I apologised once again, remorseful in the knowledge that I was solely responsible for wrecking all the plans we had set in place (set for the last two months, to make matters worse) for the next three days' holiday, leaving me with the knowledge that both of us would be spending those three days alone now, due to my inability to make the last train tonight.

"You must cease to apologise for your call of duty, Doctor," he admonished me sternly, and I fancied I could nearly see his thin finger pointing sternly at the telephone. "And you really should hang up this infernal instrument and get some rest – you sound exhausted."

"Very well then." I did not possess the strength to argue with the man even had I wanted to.

His voice had softened considerably. "Go on, old chap."

I sighed, a small tired smile crossing my face in my relief of how well he had accepted the unsettling news of our plans being destroyed; in bygone days he could become a veritable plague upon our house were his plans to be in any way altered from the ones he had set in granite.

"Right. I shall call you tomorrow?" It was more a request than a statement.

"Do," was his rapid – _too_ rapid; almost wistful, if such a word could apply to my saturnine friend – response. "Now go on, my dear fellow; you shall be needed very shortly, I imagine."

I was about to wish him a Happy Christmas as I probably would not be able to until tomorrow morning at the earliest, but true to his abhorrence of saying goodbyes, he had hung up the receiver before I was able to vocalise the sentiment.

I sighed wearily and stumbled back to my bedroom after informing my housekeeper to wake me in two hours. I had already, in preparation for my being in Sussex until after Boxing Day, given the maid the entire three days off and my housekeeper was due to leave in just a few hours…what on earth was I going to eat for the next three days?

Those trivial thoughts were secondary, however, to the ones that flitted through my mind as I regretfully removed the brightly-wrapped parcel from my bed and set it carefully on the dressing-table. Had I known the holiday was going to take this turn, I should have put my friend's Christmas gift in the post a week ago.

But even those depressing thoughts, together with the still-gnawing worry over my small and frail client, vanished from my mind as I sprawled across my bed and instantly fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.

* * *

Two hours was hardly enough rest for any man who had not slept in a day or three, but the short but intense cat-nap sufficed to renew my energy enough to carry me through the rest of the evening and better portion of the night as well.

Around midnight my patient passed the crisis in safety, and never have I been able to give anyone a greater Christmas present than I did when I delivered the news to the half-frantic young couple waiting in the gaily-decorated room below, complete with a large Christmas tree and wrapped presents for the poor lass who was my patient.

As the mother began to weep tears of joy and the father to wring my hand with a grip scarce steadier than my own, my eyes fell upon the small Nativity scene depicted across the large oaken fireplace mantel. I thanked Providence for sparing the couple the tragedy of a Christmas spent without a loved one; well I knew the pain of such an event, and I should wish it upon no man or woman.

Surely there could be no greater reason to become a healer than the expressions of gratitude I received at that moment from the stammering parents, which expressions only exponentially multiplied when I smiled and told them to not fret about the payment for my services – it was Christmas, after all, and the spirit of giving did not exist only in romantic stories despite Sherlock Holmes's opinions on the subject.

After remaining for an hour and a half to see that the little one remained out of danger, I finally left the two young (so _very_ young; I rather uncomfortably felt perfectly ancient in comparison) parents stealthily decorating the sleeping child's sickroom with red-and-green decorations and modest presents from the downstairs stash. Beyond exhausted in body, I was in contrast rather satisfied in mind regarding my contribution to a Christmastide that would have been bleak and lonely and grief-stricken for a young family, had I not made the sacrifice of my own personal wants at the season.

However, the warmth that had filled me upon exiting the small house had faded and frozen by the time I reached my own cheerless, dark dwelling in Queen Anne Street. A thick blanket of snow, which normally brought me enjoyment this festive time of year, only served to further chill me as it penetrated and inundated my footwear long before I stumbled up to my door.

A ridiculously childish portion of my heart did not want to even _enter_ the dark house, alone and cold, but practicality soon overrode my foolish sentiment and I stumbled into the lonely hall amid a pile of grey half-slush. I knocked the snow from my boots and then fumbled in the dark for the hat-stand, finally locating it and setting my damp bowler thereupon, followed by my wet and stiffly crackling overcoat.

I decided to forego indulging in a warming drink, for the simple reason that the effort to mix said drink would expend more energy than I possessed at the moment. Instead I moved through the hall toward my cold little bedroom at the rear of the house.

Suddenly I tripped over something large and sharp-cornered lying in the hall, sending me crashing soundly to the floor just outside my sitting-room. _What in blazes?! _I thought crossly, struggling wearily to my hands and knees. I did not remember moving my luggage from my bedroom out to the hall…ah, I had not told my housekeeper that I was not going to Sussex after all, and she must have moved it out for me before leaving herself for her family, heaven bless the dear lady.

I sighed and was about to rise when a faint glow to my right from under the sitting-room door caught my eye. She must also have left a lamp burning, evidently. I staggered back to my feet and fumbled for the doorknob, very much not appreciating having to go all the way into the room to snuff a lamp she had left on.

I had not taken many steps into the room, however, before I stopped short, staring. A dying fire lay flickering in greeting upon the hearth, and the gas-jet above the mantel had been lowered to a small glow, casting a golden semi-circle of light playing about the fireside. A half-open violin case lay to one side of the hearth-rug, a red-and-gold-wrapped package perched provokingly upon my armchair.

And across the opposite chair, his long legs dangling sideways over the armrest and his head pillowed on his arm against the wing, sprawled the familiar – and deeply sleeping – figure of my friend and retired colleague, Sherlock Holmes.

I had exclaimed aloud in my abject surprise upon seeing him, realising now the luggage I had tripped over in the hall must have been his, and at my interjection he suddenly started and blinked sleepily, rubbing his sleeve over his eyes before peering about him in momentary drowsy confusion.

"Holmes, what the devil!" I gasped, still standing there gaping, unable to believe what my eyes were relaying to my mind.

Sherlock Holmes had, in the eighteen months since his retirement, _not_ _once_ come up to London – not even at my request. I had begged, cajoled, pleaded, even threatened to come down there and physically drag him away from that cottage and those infernal bees, and still he refused to even consider returning to London for a visit.

And yet, here he was, grinning deviously at me from the depths of my spare armchair.

"Now, my dear Watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback," said he, flashing me an even wider grin, most impertinently paraphrasing one of my recent stories in the _Strand_ magazine.

"I am," I retorted, emerging slowly out of my stupefaction. "What on earth –"

"If you will pardon an amateur diagnosis, Doctor, allow me to point out that you probably should be sitting down; not standing there swaying, half-dead on your feet," he interrupted me fondly, his keen eyes flitting over me and not missing a single detail with the practised ease of a professional observer.

"Yes…" I murmured mechanically, still half-stunned by the sight of him and the rest of me running more on necessary adrenaline than actual energy at this point in a very long week. I rubbed a hand across my bleary eyes and suddenly heard a creaking of springs. A hand slipped firmly to support under my elbow.

"You know how loudly Mrs. Hudson would be shrieking right now if she could see how terrible you look?" he inquired with a faint hint of wistful nostalgia, helping me to my chair. He swept the brightly-wrapped gift off the seat, depositing the present beside his violin and shoving the ottoman toward my feet.

I had to chuckle in remembrance of days gone by, despite being so horribly tired. "Yes, indeed." I leant back in the soft chair with a long sigh; it felt almost too good to simply sit still for a while. I propped my aching leg up on the ottoman and let the warmth of the fire he now was stirring up flicker warmly over me, banishing the chill from my bones; though the majority of the coldness had vanished upon my entering the room a moment ago.

I did not even realise my eyes had closed and that I was actually starting to doze off, not until something warm and soft struck and then enveloped my legs. I started into alertness (or the closest thing to it I could manage) and looked up to see Holmes in the act of throwing a blanket over me. The tension of the last few hours and days started to drain away slowly from my muddled head and tense body, and I smiled at him, trying to stifle a yawn but not having any great success.

"There, that's better," he declared importantly, surveying his handiwork with the critical eye of a scientist performing an experiment. "Now. Have you anything decent to drink in this house?"

"You would know, had you come up to visit me before now," I retorted with a streak of drowsy mischief. "The cabinet over there, by the door."

My friend glared for a moment at my disapproving his hermitage, but without much further delay he stalked over to the cabinet in question and rummaged through my liquor collection amid varying clinks and clanks until he located something apparently to his taste.

"Hardly the same as mulled wine for the holiday, my dear chap, but it will have to do," I heard him call over his shoulder. The sound vaguely swirled around, a murky jumble in my hearing as I felt my eyes drifting shut again despite my intense desire to stay up and talk to my dear friend.

In a last valiant effort to remain alert, I fiercely refused to yawn (nearly taking my jaw from its socket in the process) and looked up as he handed me a glass of some rosy spirit before folding his long limbs back into the other armchair opposite.

"I perceived from the condition of your hall and the state of your front stoop that the household help has vanished for the duration of the holiday," he informed me as he sipped the drink.

"Unfortunately, yes," I murmured, rubbing my eyes sluggishly. I watched the firelight infuse my glass with a variety of sparkling rosy rainbows, which oddly fascinated my dwindling consciousness. "As I planned to be in Sussex, I gave them the next few days off…" I was forced to stop from speaking in order to belatedly cover another wide yawn, flushing in embarrassment at my breach of etiquette.

Holmes's grey eyes glinted in lighthearted amusement and he smiled at me. "Then we shall be dining out, I suppose, tomorrow. Christmas dinner at the Diogenes, Watson?"

I blinked drowsily in his general direction, or what I hoped to be his direction. "Mmm? How're you going t' manage that?"

"Being the younger sibling of a founding member does have its perks," he replied cheerfully. "No doubt brother mine shall be thoroughly disgruntled to see me, especially on a holiday, but he is sure to have got over the fact by the time he returns to Whitehall and his infernal 'accounting' on the twenty-seventh."

I smiled sleepily once more, quite happy at the idea of not having to fend for myself for a Christmas dinner; or worse, having to go to some cheap hotel for an even cheaper meal. Very good.

I barely realised that my eyes were closing again until suddenly my head jerked up from where it had begun to nod. I felt my barely-touched wine glass being slipped out somehow from my fingers; that was good too, for then I could move my hand back under the soft blanket, burrowing down into its coziness and watching the flames flicker in the hearth, mesmerizing me with their steadying glow and fuzzing gradually into a warm blur.

"Watson? My dear fellow, are you asleep?" I vaguely heard Holmes's voice from somewhere over my shoulder and I stirred under the blanket in a still-reflexive instinct, born of years of instant responding to his commands no matter the situation.

"Mmgh?" was as best as I could manage under the circumstances, but surely the world's foremost (retired) consulting detective could deduce what I was saying without my having to open my eyes?

I heard a quiet chuckle and then felt a sudden softness – a pillow? – being shoved gently behind my head as it rested against the wing of the armchair. Even better.

I murmured what I hoped was a comprehensible word of thanks; I was far too tired to even consider further converse at this point, for I could feel my exhausted mind and body already shutting down completely, safe in the knowledge that all was well in the world, or _my_ world at least, for the present. I could even imagine, if I kept my eyes closed and ignored the occasional beeps of those infernal motor-car horns outside, that I was back in our old sitting room at Baker Street.

When I felt a hand come to rest gently on my shoulder and a quite well-known voice, obviously speaking through a smile, softly say "Sleep, my dear Watson. We shall indulge in our Christmas celebration a trifle later today," then I wondered if perhaps I really were back in our old home…perhaps things had not really changed…

And when, just as I was drifting off into the welcoming warmth of a peaceful sleep, the strains of a familiar Christmas carol being played upon even more familiar strings reached my ears, I vaguely remember smiling contentedly and allowing myself to finally and completely relax; for with Sherlock Holmes sitting across from me, it did not really matter _where_ I was or what had changed in the world.

Some things never would.


	8. Chapter 8

The peaceful blackness of a calm and gentle sleep suddenly jolted, shattering into a blur of colour as a sharp and persistent ringing blared in close, painful proximity to my ear.

I grunted my still half-asleep annoyance at being rudely awoken and was about to knock the telephone off the desk in my frustration, when suddenly I remembered that I had not gone to bed last night due to an accident involving two motor-cars and one old hansom cab, whose driver had had a bit too much holiday ale, taking place just down Queen Anne Street. After being summoned for emergency medical help, I had returned to my consulting room and decided to finish the story I had been working on since I was still wide-awake from adrenaline and cold. Somewhere in the process I must have fallen asleep at my desk, which would explain why the side of my head felt rather flat at the moment.

Which meant this telephone was the office line, not my personal number, and in all probability was another emergency. _Gone are the days where gentlefolk celebrated the arrival of a new year in cozy comfort at home_, I reflected ruefully as a burst of raucous laughter passing by outside my window further awoke my senses.

That, and the fact that the telephone was still shrilling in my ear.

I yawned sleepily, rubbing my dry eyes with one hand and groping for the telephone receiver with the other. Finally I located the instrument and attempted to force my slumber-rough voice into something resembling normality.

"Hallo?" I grimaced at the sound of my muzzy vocal chords and covered the receiver with my hand so as to clear my throat with courtesy.

"Did you fall asleep at your desk _again_?"

I forewent telephone etiquette when none was necessary and so felt entirely justified in growling a testy affirmative.

A dry chuckle bounced through the line in return. "And a Happy New Year to you as well, my dear Doctor. I admit I was hoping to catch you still up."

"I _wasn't_," I muttered pointedly, rubbing my eyes again and attempting to focus my still drowsy brain into logical clarity. Or at least something farther from grumpiness than I felt at the moment.

"True. You really have got to stop falling asleep at your work, Watson." His tone slipped from playful bantering into gentle concern with an unconscious ease, after several years of speaking long-distance in this indirect manner. "It cannot be good for your clarity of mind, or for your rheumatism."

"And you are a fine one to talk of the latter?" I retorted fondly. "How many times have you stayed up all night long with those precious bees of yours?"

"How many, or how many would I tell my self-imposed physician?"

"Never mind," I chuckled, my mind sharpening into a more alert state now. I attempted to speak but was forced to slur around one final yawn. "Wha' time is it?"

"Midnight. Of January first. 1909. The new year has begun." He added this last in a most helpful tone.

I scowled at the receiver. "Yes, I _was_ able to deduce that for myself, thank you very much."

"You are dreadfully cranky when woken abruptly, aren't you? I distinctly remember your shocking Mrs. Hudson, one morning when I asked her to waken you to catch a train for a case in Surrey, by swearing at the dear woman something awful."

I felt my ears redden at the remembrance. Our landlady had been first scandalised, and then burst into a fit of giggles before recommending to Holmes that we stop for black coffee on the way to the station.

"I thought she was _you_," I muttered.

"I sincerely doubt the good woman would accept that to be a compliment. She was typically much more gentle than I in rousting you from your slumbers on the odd case of a morning."

"On that I entirely concur. I don't believe she _ever_ dumped my ewer pitcher onto my head in the middle of February."

"Come, come, I only used such drastic measures once. And you positively refused to get up for our hysterical client!" he protested indignantly, though I could hear muffled laughter through the connection despite his efforts to conceal it.

"And you do not believe the client wondered at the brawl going on upstairs, mere moments after you left her in the sitting room?"

My friend snickered loudly, no longer attempting to mask the fact that he was highly amused at the memories. "You should be happy that I awakened you just now via telephone and not in person, then."

"I should, but I am not," I returned softly, for I would have gladly paid the price of momentary waking discomfort to be off on another of those adventures again in the company of Sherlock Holmes.

Silence fell gently over both ends of the connection at my words and lasted for a few soft moments as we both wandered a joined path of memory.

"I am sorry you couldn't come down," he lamented at last.

"So am I," I sighed, resolutely pulling myself back from the precipice of nostalgia, "but unfortunately the holidays do not fall on weekends but once every five years or so."

"You are still coming down this weekend, I trust?"

"Unless an emergency arises to physically prevent me, most definitely."

"Excellent. I am in need of your expert opinion on something, Doctor."

"Something medical?" I asked, surprised at both the admission and the excitement that tinged his voice with a crackling edge.

"No, no. I want to write a book, Watson."

I blinked, trying to process this enormous fact in my poor, finite, sleep-deprived consciousness. "A book."

"Yes, quite."

"You hate books."

"Not a novel, for heaven's sake," he exclaimed with a note of sheer horror. "I shall leave that sort of rot to _experts_ such as yourself."

"Sarcasm is _not_ a practical way to inveigle me into helping you," I warned testily.

"Who said I was being sarcastic?"

"Holmes…" I pinched my forehead and prayed for patience. Or unconsciousness.

"Erhem, yes. Well. A handbook, so to speak, is what I want to write," said he eagerly.

"That book detailing every blessed point of the 'science of detection and analysis' that you've been touting for so many years?" I asked incredulously, for he had been all talk and no pen on the matter for well over a decade.

"No, no, no. A handbook on apiculture."

I resisted the urge to strangle myself with the telephone cord. "A book on _bee-farming_? Holmes, there are dozens of books in circulation on that subject."

"Not by me, there aren't." He sounded most complacent about the fact, too.

"You are, as usual, a veritable paragon of humility," I snorted. "What in the world makes you believe you could ever get a bee-farming handbook published?"

"My name, Doctor. I am a household word, thanks to your ridiculously romanticised memoirs."

"Your name is known as a romantic adventure hero, not as a _bee-farmer_," I replied dryly.

"What?"

"I am just saying, Holmes – you would be wiser to spend your time writing a series of monographs on detection and publishing them in a compilation, as far as being able to get into a writing market."

"Perhaps…" He sounded unconvinced. "But I want to write _this_, Watson!"

I sighed, for I knew that wheedling tone of voice all too well…

"You, my dear Boswell, have made several friends among the hierarchy that is a publishing business and its agents," he coaxed slyly.

No, no, no, _no_.

"But –"

"Do not indulge in false modesty, Watson! I have seen the reviews and the publicity of the _Strand_ and its American contemporaries; my dear fellow, all you would have to do is put your name on something and it would had an instant in-road into being published."

Under normal circumstances, such ardent praise from my self-professed highest critic would be highly out of character. Under these, it was an obvious subterfuge to charm me into giving in (not usually a difficult feat for that man to accomplish).

"Holmes…" I rubbed my forehead in exasperation. "Are you asking me to be your literary agent?"

"Yes. No! I mean…well…"

"I make no promises," I muttered reluctantly, scribbling a note down on my appointment-book to see about possible markets for the ridiculous volume.

His crow of delight nearly deafened me. "Ouch. How much of the thing have you written yet, Holmes?"

"Not a blessed word."

I dropped my pencil with an exasperated sigh, and leant my weary head down on my arm there upon my desk, which actually was rather comfortable for a block of wood. "Let us worry about getting the thing written first, before we fret about finding a publisher, eh?" I murmured.

"It's a bargain. But I need your help in organizing chapters and so on," he pleaded hesitantly.

"Yes…'f course." I yawned widely and only realised my breach of etiquette when he chuckled into the telephone.

"You are not even vertical any longer, are you."

"Brilliant deduction, Holmes."

"I am going to hang up now so that you may retire for the night."

"All right…"

"That means you have to get up out of that chair. You'll put your back out sleeping like that all night."

I murmured a weary acquiescence and heaved myself to my feet with a muffled groan and a popping of joints; I knew his keen ears would pick up the sounds and draw the correct conclusion that I was obeying his orders (as was the custom).

"That is better. Happy New Year, my dear fellow, and many more of them," my friend said softly.

I hoped he could tell from my voice that I was smiling. "And to you, my dear chap. I shall see you on Friday."

"Excellent. I shall save the champagne and streamers until that more important occasion."

I was too sleepy to decide if he were teasing or not. "Mmhm."

"Very well, then, Doctor. I prescribe putting this receiver back into its cradle for these two old men." This time I knew he was tweaking me, and I laughed along with him. "Good-night, my dear fellow."

"Good-night, Holm–" I broke off in exasperation as a dull click sounded in my ear before mere static. As was his custom, his love of having the last word in any conversation (argument or otherwise), he had hung up the telephone before I could finish.

Years could come and go in just one night, and the world and its occupants would change during those years.

But the most important things never would.


	9. Chapter 9

_I apologise in advance for the melancholia, but I was bit by a plot bunny after listening to the BBC Radio's magnificent adaptation of LAST._

* * *

I was writing out a prescription for one of my more wealthy patients, one warm summer afternoon some ten years or so after I had first taken my practice, when the telephone rang loudly and insistently, demanding my immediate attention. I ignored the instrument, naturally, instead focusing my attention on the patient at hand. The 'phone shrilled for some six or seven rings before finally ceasing, much to my relief, as my client was looking rather perturbed at the din.

I had not finished my scribbling when the ridiculous thing began to sound again, and kept on in that matter for at least seven or eight _more_ rings. I hastily called for the maid as my patient began to frown pointedly, and a moment later the young girl appeared in the doorway, bobbing a curtsy toward the Lady across the desk from me.

"Yes, sir?"

"The telephone, Julia, if you please?" I indicated the receiver and finished scrawling out the prescription. Then I stood and moved round the desk to hand it to my client as the girl picked up the telephone.

I could hear her polite greeting as I instructed my patient once more upon the medication and when it should be taken, together with further instructions for the physical and mental care of her sister, and then showed the lady to the door. When it had shut behind her, I turned with a scowl to my maid, who was holding the telephone and looking highly uneasy. Who the devil would be so rude as to ring up anyone, even a doctor, with such persistence and discourtesy during consulting-hours?

"The gentleman says it is an emergency, Doctor," Julia murmured, casting a dubious look at the receiver.

"Who is it?" I sighed, running a hand through my hair and looking at my watch. I had still four patients on schedule for the afternoon, two of which were already waiting outside.

"Mr. Holmes, sir," the girl answered, quickly handing me the telephone; for I normally dropped all else to talk to the man and my staff well knew the fact. I had not the time this afternoon, however, and it was with a feeling of deep annoyance that I took the receiver – for Holmes had a most annoying habit of telling my housekeeper or whoever answered the telephone that it was a dreadful emergency, when in reality it was not any more than a desire to talk to me. While flattering, that attitude was highly inconvenient for my household.

"Give me five minutes, and show Mr. Harkley in, Julia." The girl nodded and tripped lightly out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. I turned my attention back to the telephone. "Holmes, this is very much an inopportune time."

"I apologise for interrupting your afternoon's business, Doctor, but I do assure you that this time I am not prevaricating and it is legitimately an emergency." I sat down with a frown, for his voice was so deathly serious that I believed him at once. "I have to talk to you, Watson, and right away."

"Holmes, I still have four patients that cannot just be shoved off onto another doctor, you know that full well," I protested quietly. "You will have to wait until half-past five, unless you can tell me now; I can give you five minutes..."

"I can't…I mean…no, I can't over the phone, and it would take too long," he hurried distractedly, as if he were not really concentrating. That was odd. "But I have to see you tonight, Watson."

"Wait, what? See me? Holmes, there is no way in the world I can take a train down there tonight!"

"No, no, I'm in London."

"You are _what_?" I gasped, for the novelty of the thing was dumbfounding.

"I am here in London right now, and I need to see you. Can't you get someone to take those patients for you? The matter I must discuss with you is of rather more importance than trivial coughs and colds."

"No, I cannot," I retorted with some irritation, for his presumption that I would drop everything just because he suddenly took it into his head to visit London unannounced for the first time in nearly a year thoroughly nettled me. "You may call around five-thirty, Holmes. _Some_ of us have not yet retired and still have occupations that must be attended to."

The silence on the other end of the telephone told me that he was either too irritated or too distracted to retort to my pointed comment. Then, "I shall call at five, just in case you are done early."

I sighed, my irritation vanishing at the realisation that he sounded genuinely upset over something, though I had no idea what. "Very well, I shall do my best to hurry, Holmes."

"Thank you, my dear fellow. Best to get back to your work now." I heard a dull click as the line went dead, leaving me staring at the telephone in incredulity. Had he actually just _thanked _me?

Something was dreadfully not right about this, and the feeling did not dissipate but rather grew as my afternoon wore onward.

Julia told me Holmes was here by four-thirty, and my feeling of concern at his thoroughly atypical behaviour deepened so much that I could scarcely concentrate upon my last patient. Holmes never came up to London to visit me unannounced, and never had he been so positively (and curtly) insistent that I drop my schedule to see him. Such a thing was beyond uncharacteristic, and when such a stolidly characteristic man's personality veered so aberrantly it was very disconcerting.

Finally Julia showed the last patient of the day out, and I closed up shop as quickly as possible and went out to meet my friend in the waiting-room.

"My dear fellow, whatever brings you to London like this?" I asked eagerly, after the usual greetings had been exchanged and I had seen him back to my sitting room instead of the sterile and uncomfortable consulting-room.

To my surprise, he did not answer immediately but dropped his gaze from mine for a moment, his entire thin face drooping in a gesture of such miserable disconsolation that it sent an instinctive chill over me though I had no idea what he was going to say.

"What…what is going on, Holmes?" I posed the worried question as we stood together by the window in the warm, late afternoon sunshine.

My friend sighed and rubbed his eyes for a moment, allowing his thin form to sag against the wall, and then finally he looked back up at me. I caught my breath, for his eyes…never had I seen such an absolute _dread_ in them before; it was obvious that he did not want to tell me whatever his disturbing news was.

"Watson…" he paused, fidgeted nervously with the drapes, and then met my eyes once again. "Watson, I am going away for a while."

"You…are what?" I took a slow moment to process his words but remained as mystified as ever afterwards. "Going…where?"

"America, initially, but other than that I – I cannot tell you," he mumbled, turning away to look out the window at the sunset, draping gorgeous reds and pinks and oranges to blanket the dun-coloured houses and reflect off the metal of passing motor-cars.

"Wait a moment," I interjected pointedly, quite stung by his cryptic attitude and the fact that he still, after _thirty years_, still did not completely trust me. "What the devil are you talking about? America? Going for how long? And since when have you not been able to tell me something of that magnitude? I thought we had thrashed that out after your return to England in '94, Holmes – that you would never again deceive me!"

"You think I do not remember?" he snapped angrily, whirling to face me with flashing eyes, towering over me in a furious outburst so sudden I think it surprised us both.

I stepped backward, deeply regretting my hasty words, only to see his resentment deflate just as suddenly as it had appeared; the colour fled from his face, he took two unsteady steps toward the fire, and then collapsed into the spare armchair, his head buried silently in his hands.

I stood with my legs and my mind frozen for a moment, too shocked to think of what to do or say, and then I slowly made my way over to stand beside him. I did not realise he was shaking, positively trembling, until I laid a hand gently upon his thin shoulder and felt him quivering under my grip.

"I'm sorry," I whispered helplessly, pulling my own chair closer to his with my foot and then hesitantly sitting in it. "I – did not mean that, Holmes…I am truly sorry."

"No," he responded instantly, raising his head to rest his chin upon his clasped hands, his elbows propped upon his knees. "It was an entirely justified reaction, Watson."

"That doesn't mean –"

He cut me off with a sad little wave of a thin hand and continued staring blankly into the fire. I waited patiently, though a cold, crawling feeling of dread was steadily creeping its way throughout my mind and working its chilly way to my heart. Finally Holmes sat back and looked me directly in the eye, with the resigned air of a man who has made his decision and will accept the consequences.

"Watson, do allow me to start from the beginning." He was speaking more calmly now, though I could see a lurking misery lingering in the corners of his eyes, could tell from his nervous picking at the loose thread on the chair arm cushion that he was still edgy.

"Pray do," I replied gently.

"I have been…called back into the harness, so to speak," he informed me with a wry smile. "For the government."

I stared at him in utter disbelief – the man was fifty-eight, for heaven's sake, and had been in retirement for nearly a decade!

"Yes, yes, I know, but it is absolutely necessary, apparently," he sighed, tapping a finger against his lips. "The Prime Minister himself was at my cottage yesterday, Watson, and not for the first time this week. I had held out for as long as I could, but…well, you understand, of course – you're a soldier. I have a duty to my country, Doctor."

"Yes…but…but what are you…what are you going to be doing?" I gasped, unable to form a coherent sentence in the face of this unforeseen news.

My companion's expressive face clouded, and his eyes shadowed into a murky, troubled grey. "That is what I cannot tell you, old fellow," he replied, though he softened the blow with a desperately pleading look. "And not due to any reservations upon my part, I assure you. It is just that…the work is so volatile that no one can even know that I have left the country."

I nodded wordlessly, trying to locate my truant voice, and his tone and eyes simultaneously softened as he looked at me. "It took me two hours to convince my brother that I was not about to leave the country without telling you _something_. Finally I told him I was coming to see you whether he and His Majesty liked the fact or not, and security could go hang for all I cared. I would not have you go through such uncertainty about my fate again, Watson."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to make sense of all this. My head spun in an absolute whirlwind of troubled, confusing thoughts and images, far too rapidly to be processed so quickly as the conversation was transpiring. The combined effect served to make me feel vaguely light-headed.

"Holmes…are you saying…you're going to become a – a _spy_ for the government?" I gasped, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper without conscious effort.

"A very floridly dramatic title, my dear fellow, but then I should not have expected anything less from you," he rejoined with a hint of a twinkle, though his tone had not lost its gravity.

I got to my feet slowly, barely noticing the now-constant pain in my leg flaring sharply, for my mind tumbled about in a confused clutter of thoughts that most inconveniently refused to fall into anything resembling logical order. Finally in my perambulations, during which Holmes was kindly silent in allowing me to absorb his startling revelation, I stopped at the window again and noted that darkness was hovering over the city, waiting to descend and put the populace to sleep.

Amid my musings I heard footsteps behind me, coming cautiously to a point just to my right and then stopping.

"How long…will you be gone?" I asked hoarsely.

"Several months, at least," he whispered. "Perhaps…perhaps a year or more, I simply don't know."

"A _year or more_?" I closed my eyes, remembering the last time my friend was absent for time measured in years, not weeks, and shuddered at the horrible recollection, the lingering ghosts of which had still not yet entirely left off haunting us both.

"And…when will you have to leave?" The sun had nearly set now, just a brilliant orange sliver visible through the fog and drab buildings...as if with my companion's news the entire world was losing its colour, its life and vitality, and fading into a dreary grey shadowland.

Holmes was silent after my question…_too_ silent. I turned to look at him, and saw that his eyes had become softer and were fixing themselves upon any object near us except for me.

"Holmes?"

He sighed with unspeakable weariness, and finally met my gaze, calm and resigned and vaguely apologetic all at the same instant. "In the morning," he replied simply.

I found I was unable to even voice the disbelieving question, the words stopping and choking in my throat.

"I must, my dear fellow," he continued with uncharacteristic gentleness, laying a hesitant hand upon my arm as the sun slowly drew all the warmth from the city and vanished with it, leaving only chill and darkness behind. "I must reach the States before the end of the month. I – I know this is all very sudden, Watson, and I promise had I any inkling that it would be so I should have called you up straight away last night –"

But I was no longer listening, my mind trying and failing dismally to comprehend the idea of my friend leaving the country, on a governmental mission – and one so dangerous that he probably would not be able to contact me at all to inform me of his safety.

One that was so dangerous that he might not return. Ever.

I had seen in my own service to the Empire what happened to double agents and traitors were they caught by the opposite side, and despite his still-magnificent acting skills Sherlock Holmes was not a thirty-year-old, vibrant performer any longer.

And unlike all the previous missions in his rousing career that had been so dangerous, I could not accompany him, for obvious reasons. Besides the fact that two men were more noticeable than one, besides the fact that I had no acting ability whatsoever…there remained the simple fact, evidenced by more daily physical aches and slow movements than I wished to acknowledge, that I was too old for this sort of thing.

I was also too old to be the one left behind to worry, but that seemed beside the point at the moment.

As if coming up from out of a great cloud that had swirled in to smother my senses, I became aware that Holmes had my elbow and shoulder and was very gently guiding my suddenly wavering steps back to my chair. I collapsed wordlessly into it, trying to regain and steady my breathing and my nerve, and he hastened silently over to my liquor cabinet to pour us both a measure of brandy. Then he returned to press the glass into my hand.

The sting of the drink restored control of my senses, though my emotions were still tremulous at best, and I finally managed to gasp out some inane apology for my momentary weakness, which he of course dismissed as both unnecessary and understandable.

"I am so sorry, old fellow," he said sincerely, sitting opposite me and leaning forward in his earnestness. His sharply penetrating eyes flitted in concern over my face. "But…you do understand, don't you? It must be done?"

I nodded mechanically and attempted to hide the fact that my glass was still shaking slightly. "You…won't be able to contact m-anyone, then, will you? If it's a covert operation," I said flatly.

A small flash of pained regret passed through his eyes, and he shook his head reluctantly. The liquid in his glass swirled shimmering round as he moodily watched the motion. "I shall eventually have access to somehow get information to Mycroft…but heaven only knows when that will be," he replied matter-of-factly.

"What…what did you do with your cottage?" I whispered. "The bees, everything?"

Holmes smiled sadly, draining his glass and setting it on the floor with a small crystalline clink. "I had to sell my dear little creatures," he sighed with obvious regret. "The cottage will remain – and please, feel free to use it whenever you must get away from London for a day or two, dear fellow; this city could get very ugly in coming years…"

I shook my head hastily, for I could not countenance living in his home while he was playing such a dangerous game in the world, one so dangerous that perhaps he was never going to return to the dear cottage.

"Just as you like," said he softly, his keen gaze flitting worriedly across my features, as if trying to gauge my thoughts and failing for the first time in his life.

I stared into the fire, not knowing what to say if anything…what _did_ one say in a situation like this? What could I say that would not sound ridiculously puerile or so openly emotional that he would be disgusted with me? For probably a quarter of an hour silence choked the room, effectively drowning out possible conversation even had I been so inclined. Finally, Holmes cleared his throat nervously and rose, obviously hesitating and thoroughly apprehensive.

"Watson…I know this is horribly sudden," he murmured uncertainly. "Perhaps I should leave you alone for a while –"

"No, don't." The words sprang from my lips almost frantically as he was turning to leave. "Please."

My old friend nodded solemnly and relapsed back into his chair, fiddling anxiously with his cuffs and the buttons on his coat for a moment. "I…I have until eleven, and then I must return to Whitehall for the final plans and instructions," he affirmed awkwardly, glancing at my mantel clock, which read shortly before seven.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes in a surge of deep weariness, still trying to take it all in. The world was not supposed to fall apart so quickly, not to old men like we were…this sort of shock and painful drama was for the younger generation.

"Would you care for a walk through London?" I heard Holmes ask softly, and I glanced upward to see him gamely conjuring up a rare smile from the depths of his melancholy soul, obviously just for me.

I nodded and attempted to return the pleasant gesture for his sake, and he hopped out of his chair to fetch my coat and hat. For the next two and a half hours we rambled all over the city, seeing the old sights in the darkness and reminiscing to the point that we both were rather spent by the time we returned to my rooms in Queen Anne Street. I was absolutely fatigued from alternating between laughing at the memories he insisted upon resurrecting, some of them rather embarrassing, and trying to hold back from tears at some of the others, and the thought that for the next…months? years?...we would not be able to do this...perhaps never again.

My housekeeper had not yet gone to bed when we returned and was accommodating enough to make us a pot of strong tea, after two cups of which I was slightly more in control of my feelings than I had been. Still, though, that lingering dread of knowing a farewell was approaching cast a damp cloud upon our converse for the remaining hour during which we endeavoured to talk ourselves to distraction. The last half-hour we spent in a subdued silence, wrapped in our own thoughts, until the clock struck eleven with such loud ferocity we both started in dismay.

His eyes met mine and held for a long moment, and then they dropped as he stood to retrieve his hat and stick. I followed wordlessly as he donned his outerwear and moved to the hall, where a single light glowed in the vestibule, in addition to the red glow that filtered through the glass fanlight in my door.

"Oh…I nearly forgot," he cried suddenly, fishing about in his pocket. "Would you – do something for me, while I am away?"

I swallowed down the words of instant acquiescence that stuck chokingly in my throat and nodded instead. He smiled warmly and handed me a goodly stack of papers.

"My book." His smile widened into a grin aimed solely at me. "On bee-keeping. You did say you wouldn't mind taking care of it for me?"

I found myself laughing, almost half-hysterically, at the idea of my editing and seeing his ridiculous volume published, but I took the stack of precious manuscript as if it were his last will and testament, and promised to give it my undivided attention on a daily basis. He smiled again and then donned his hat and gloves, fidgeting fastidiously with the latter as if trying to fit them exactly right on his hand.

"Well, then," said he finally with loud and obviously artificial cheerfulness, reaching for the doorknob. "Do take care of yourself, old man, and my brother will keep you informed as best he can."

"Holmes…" I stopped, momentarily unable to continue, and my companion paused, slowly turning to face me with a knowing sigh. "Holmes – promise me you'll be careful," I finally managed, clenching my jaw to prevent my voice from shaking more than it was already. He opened his mouth in a gently scoffing response, and I took a sudden step closer to him in my impulsive earnestness.

"No, I mean it, Holmes; you know how reckless you are regarding your own health, and I…you'll be on your own in this business." His eyes softened, and I gulped desperately, wishing for something to say that was not terribly dramatic but would still convey my heart. "England isn't ready to do without its most famous literary hero." I managed a weak smile after that last bit when he snorted fondly.

"I shall be careful, Watson." He voiced the promise in a quiet tone of reassurance, knowing this was not an occasion for jests or humour. My old friend extended his hand, half-hesitantly in a sudden fit of shyness, and I grasped it with all the strength I could muster.

"Do not look so disconsolate, Doctor," he spoke softly, his left hand coming gradually to rest on the other side of mine. "It is an honour to serve one's country." I could only nod in agreement. "And by serving England, I am thereby serving the selfless, brave men who made her the world's greatest Empire. Men like you, my dear Watson; I am most proud to add my name to such a legacy of heroes."

I could not tell through my eyes burning like they were, but I was nearly certain Holmes was having the same visual difficulty, for his hands clenched suddenly so tightly that my fingers went numb, before they released the pressure and he stepped back. I blinked, dashed a hand over my eyes, and saw that he was scrutinising my appearance closely, as if to memorise afresh what he had to have already known by heart.

Finally the door was swung open into the gloom with a creak of hinges, signifying the end of more than just a day's time. My friend took a precautionary glance outside and then turned one final time to me, speaking in a voice more gentle than I had ever heard before from his lips. "I shall not disappoint any of those who have placed their trust in my abilities," he told me with the tiniest quirk of the old arrogant smile, and I had to chuckle – some things had not changed with time, his outrageous self-confidence among them.

"Until we meet again, then, my dear fellow. Do take care, Watson; and remember me as fondly as I will you in my absence."

Sherlock Holmes smiled affectionately at me, raised his stick to his hat in a smart salute, and then vanished into the blackness of the chokingly warm summer night.

I closed the door and leant against it for a long moment, the papers in my left hand being clenched so tightly they would retain the crease for several days afterwards. Then I turned off the hall light and returned to my sitting room, where I poured myself another glass and then settled by the dwindling fire to glance over the atrocity of a manuscript my friend was so desperately proud of.

But before I reached the page with the heading of _Chapter One_, my eye was caught by the preceding page, entitled simply _Dedication_.

_No man is an island, though perhaps a peninsula. To the man who prevented the former eventuality in my life over thirty years ago, to the one anchoring constant in a tempestuous age, my heartfelt and hitherto unspoken gratitude._

I smiled and blinked my vision clear once more, only to see a further line of his atrocious scrawl adorning the bottom of that same page.

_And if you somehow manage to make this very emphatically scientific handbook into yet another romantic memoir, Watson, I shall cease my espionage post-haste and return to London for the sole purpose of murdering you._

My smile turned into a thoughtful grin, as I realised that might be a very good thing to remember, were my friend's stint as His Majesty's Spy to turn into a longer period than either of us could bear…


	10. Chapter 10

_In disclaimer, I believe by the point this is set that the Doctor would have been living with Holmes on the Downs; however, for sake of a nibbling plot bunny, this is outside the universe in which I've set my Immortality Trilogy._

* * *

In all the years I spent in and out of the company of the world's first and foremost private consulting detective, I can recall only a few cases in which I was personally instrumental in drawing before his attention; and of those, only three actually concerned me personally. The latter of those three occurred long after Holmes's retirement from the public eye, and I shall here relate the problem in fairly brief detail.

After ascertaining that the blinds were drawn and the drapes pulled one cold January night in 1926, I gave my friend's telephone number to the operator and then moved across the room to securely lock the door, returning a moment later to wait for the connection to be made. After a pause, the line buzzed twice in my ear and then the receiver was picked up half-way through its third ring.

"Yes, hallo?"

"Evening, Holmes," I sighed, finally settling back into my chair with an audible creak; the day had been so dreadfully long.

"My dear Watson, I did not expect a call from you this evening."

Though unexpected, apparently I was not unwelcome, judging from his tone, and I smiled despite my unease. "How have you been?"

"About the same, Doctor; I cannot complain of much save the rheumatism," said he blithely. "But you…you sound a bit preoccupied, old chap. Something wrong?"

I sighed and rested my chin in my cupped hand, my elbow on my desk. "As a matter of fact, yes, Holmes," I admitted. "I…well, I believe I may be in need of your..._services_, for lack of a better word."

After a startled pause, his voice trickled through the line once more, with an edge of mingled curiousity and concern. "You've something you wish me to investigate?"

"Not in the strictest form of the word, no," I hastened to clarify, for well I knew he despised people asking him to solve problems after his bowing off the stage over twenty years ago. "I know you loathe the public requesting your assistance in matters after your retirement, Holmes, and –"

"Oh, Watson, _really,_" he snorted into my ear. "You are not a part of the general public, as you well know, and as such have the privilege of my assistance any time you should require such. Now…shall we start from the beginning?"

I nodded mechanically, then realised he could not see the motion and muttered an affirmative.

"Very good," he replied briskly, and I could almost picture him sitting up straighter with his fingers tapping nervously on the table, all attention as if to a potential client. "Well, then, Doctor, you've a problem for me to solve?"

"Yes…" I fidgeted with the telephone cord, twisting it round my fingers and then coiling it back beside the instrument in a black snake-like pile of loops. "It may be nothing, but…it is strange in addition to being trivial, and I remember your saying that the strange trivialities usually are important."

"Quite so. Now, my dear fellow, pray begin at the beginning," he urged gently.

"Well, it began about a fortnight ago…on a Saturday evening. I had been writing up a story all afternoon," I began, casting my mind back to the incident. "About half-past four I was called out on an emergency down the street, a cab accident, and as I was the closest physician still in town this time of a weekend I went straight away."

I paused, and heard a calm "Go on" from the other end of the connection. Frowning at the remembrance of the evening, I continued a trifle awkwardly.

"When I reached home again, around six, I came back to my study to finish the story before dinner…" I trailed off, rubbing my forehead uneasily.

"And?"

"Holmes, I would swear that I left the book open on my desk, with my fountain pen marking the spot," I affirmed . "But when I came back, the book was closed, at the left side of the desk, and my pen was lying upon the floor. My housekeeper and the maid know they are not to touch the study on the weekends, and besides they were both absent at the time anyway."

"You're quite certain you didn't just close the book and perhaps the pen rolled off in a draught after you left?" he asked, quite seriously.

"Very certain – if I had, the book would have been at the _right_ side of the desk, not the left," I answered confusedly.

"Well, it is odd, as I well remember your meticulous habits in that scribbling of yours, but I daresay it could merely be a bit of absent-mindedness, especially with your being called on an emergency just prior," Holmes ventured.

"But the same sort of thing happened last Friday, only I was with a late patient at the time," I said quietly. "I came back to my study after closing for the evening, and I would swear that the books on the shelves above my desk had been moved…nothing visibly out of place, but I just had that feeling someone had been in there, moving things maybe a fraction of an inch, you know?"

"I trust your instincts, Watson, and with good reason," my friend said slowly, obviously pondering. His tone sharpened suddenly. "Has this happened again since then?" I sighed, which gave him his answer. "When?"

"Tonight," I said reluctantly. "Just an hour ago…this time it was my consulting-room. I haven't been in all day, since it is Sunday, and when I came in an hour ago I found my stethoscope in the second drawer of my desk, when I would swear that I had put it in the top drawer – you know I don't leave my medical things just lying about in random places, Holmes!"

"Of course I do, old fellow," he replied at once, soothingly. "Is anything else out of place?"

"Nothing in particular that I can put my hands upon," I admitted uneasily. "I just have that…feeling, that someone's been in here, Holmes. Either that or…" I trailed off, the sentence hanging unfinished in the air due to my miserable reluctance to admit the other possibility.

Holmes, of course, had already divined my thoughts, and gave a derisive snort. "Or you are in the early stages of dementia? My dear Doctor, seventy-five you may be, but last I saw you, you were still of a sounder mind than any young man half your age, of my acquaintance at any rate. Remove such an idea from your head, because it is completely illogical and unfounded."

I breathed a sigh of relief, for the idea had indeed been a very real and well-founded fear; for though I had not had any indications whatsoever thus far of memory loss, that was no reason to believe I was not entering the first stages of senility. Whether Holmes's rash diagnosis were correct or not, I had no idea, but I thanked the man for relieving my worst fears.

"What do you suppose it is, then?" I asked pensively.

"You say only your desks have been targeted?"

"Well…I did notice a few things out of place in various drawers and closets," I replied thoughtfully, "but those very easily could have been made by my staff or even me, Holmes."

"But where you noticed it was in your paperwork."

"Yes," I replied, puzzled. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, my dear fellow, it is apparent that, if you are not moving these things, and your household is not, then an outside force must be. To break into a man's house and go through his private effects is a rash and dangerous pursuit, as we both know," here I grinned, and I could tell that he was as well, quite broadly, "and must carry with it a very strong motive for the risk."

"Why would someone want to break into my house and – ohhh…" I trailed off as sudden realisation struck me, partially recalled by the memory of our own breaking and entering attempts and our reasons for them.

"You see?" he asked triumphantly, the telephone vibrating with the force of his crow of glee. "Someone wants something you have, my dear Watson – in all likelihood some papers you have that, were you so inclined, could function very well as blackmail."

"I only just started publishing again for the _Strand_ last October, after a year-and-a-half break in the stories," I remembered suddenly.

"Exactly, Watson," Holmes agreed cheerfully. "There you have it. The question is, who is this person, and what papers is he after?"

"How the devil could we ever find that out?" I asked incredulously, thinking of the hundreds, yea thousands of case notes I kept in my lumber-room, study, and miscellaneous files and scrapbooks around the place.

"I suppose I could come up and stay with you for a few days, to catch the person in the act next time he tries," he mused thoughtfully. "Though I really should prefer not to leave my bees unprotected this time of the winter…"

Despite the knowledge that some unknown assailant had been breaking into my house on a regular basis after something I owned, I repressed a slight snigger at his attitude toward his precious insects.

"Let us attack the problem logically," he said suddenly, and I heard the small _snick_ of a striking match, followed by a puff of air as he drew on his pipe. "Your first story after this break in time, what was it?"

"_The Three_ _Gables_ – the Douglas Maberly murder, Isadora Klein, etc., etc.," I replied immediately. "Then those two you wrote – which did not go over very well, by the way, Holmes – and then the Josiah Amberley case last month."

"Ah, yes, Amberley, the gas murderer – what do you mean, they didn't go over very well?" he interjected indignantly.

"Holmes, you have to admit they were less than stellar adventure stories. The _Strand_ sent me a rather pointed nudge to the effect that they would prefer I continue to write them rather than sending them your manuscripts," I replied as tactfully as I could while trying to repress a fit of laughter at his disgruntled (and rather crudely phrased) muttering on the other end of the line. "And do not even get me started on your written opinions about _me_! Ideal helpmate, indeed."

"Watson…"

"Back to the subject at hand, then," I changed the topic smoothly, grinning into the telephone at his very audible squirming. "What do you make of the order of publication?"

"Nothing," he grumbled irritably. "Were the _Three Gables_ the last to be published I should suspect someone in high places fearing their illustrious name being next in your chronicles; but I cannot see why your latest adventure would spark such an unwarranted endeavour to get at certain documents you hold."

"As if I would ever make it obvious in a story who the culprits were!" I retorted indignantly. "That breaches all professional courtesy, fictional stories or otherwise!"

"Of course, my dear chap, but these things do get around, you know," he pointed out. "To the correct people, all would still be known. But no, since the order of publication has nothing to do with the intents of burglary, then it must be that the culprit only just has come into a position where the facts of his case becoming known would be destructive to a new title, estate, or fortune."

"Sound reasoning," I admitted slowly. "How are you going to find this person?"

"I cannot, not from here. I shall be on the first train tomorrow, though. Call your old librarian friend and have him save me the society news for two months back; give me twenty-four hours and a place to lay my weary head, and I shall have your problem solved within the day."

I smiled, feeling relief flood through me like a cleansing rain into dry soil, and leant back in my chair wearily. "Thank you, Holmes."

"My fee - yes, I am going to charge you, Doctor - shall be your undivided attention and company on the next weekend of my choice," he replied mischievously.

"Done!" I laughed, my heart considerably lighter now that I had obtained the help I sought.

"I seriously doubt that anything shall happen twice in one night, Watson, and besides it looks as if the culprits have no desire to do you any real harm – but just the same, please do be careful," said he, and his tone had softened into what I recognised as genuine worry.

"I always am," I assured him. "My doors are locked, and even still I sleep with my revolver near at hand. Old habits are hard to break, you know."

"I _do_ know – and your presence in this old man's life is one habit I don't care to have broken anytime soon," he replied lightly. "So do watch yourself. I shall be there first thing in the morning."

I smiled again at his obvious concern, and his lightly veiled affection. "I shall, Holmes. And thank you, my dear fellow; you have put my mind quite at ease on the matter."

"It is my business," he rejoined slyly, and we both laughed before bidding the other a good-night and hanging up the telephone receiver.

And true to his word, my friend did take my case, and did solve it in the twenty-four hours he allotted himself to do so, after which we devised a plan to rid me of the increasingly frequent attempts to get at my notes and files.

But that is another story, and one which made its abbreviated way into the opening paragraphs of the _Strand_ _Magazine_'s feature story the next month.

* * *

_There is the long row of year-books which fill a shelf, and there are the dispatch-cases filled with documents, a perfect quarry for the student not only of crime but of the social and official scandals of the late Victorian era. Concerning these latter, I may say that the writers of agonized letters, who beg that the honour of their families or the reputation of famous forbears may not be touched, have nothing to fear. The discretion and high sense of professional honour which have always distinguished my friend are still at work in the choice of these memoirs, and no confidence will be abused. I deprecate, however, in the strongest way the attempts which have been made lately to get at and to destroy these papers. The source of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr. Holmes's authority for saying that the whole story concerning __the politician, the lighthouse__, and the trained cormorant will be given to the public. There is at least one reader who will understand._

-_ The Veiled Lodger, February 1927_


	11. Chapter 11

_Missing scene from **The Written Front **(my apologies for the melancholia, but plot bunnies will out):_

* * *

Mycroft Holmes was pacing.

Though not an unusual thing for a man to do while deeply thinking, it was nevertheless atypical of this very unusual man, who refused to expend the energy in reaching for a telephone that was just beyond arm's length upon his paper-strewn desk, requiring the longsuffering secretary to do so instead.

Said instrument was shrilling annoyingly now, as it had been off and on for several hours, and the secretary made a hasty dive for the receiver as the elderly man's massive brow furrowed in absent annoyance. He continued in his perambulations, alternating glances from his watch to the street below, where darkness had fallen for the last time upon a peaceful London.

Only two hours until the world would explode, and heaven only knew the outcome.

Wilkins suddenly appeared in the older man's vision, his youthful face filled with excitement, fairly bouncing in his eagerness. "Your brother, sir. He's secured the agent," the secretary reported with unrestrained glee, his face alight with the euphoric thrill of espionage.

Mycroft Holmes sighed tolerantly, knowing well that the young man would soon lose that elated outlook on his life once the brutal reality of the world as he knew it shattered into pieces around him. Let him have his fun in this business while he still could.

Meanwhile, he took the receiver with a dismissive sad smile and re-seated himself at his desk, staring at the open declaration of war that lay there. It had been long coming, as well as his brother's return had; but only one of the two was welcome, for all that anticipation.

"Sherlock?"

"Hallo, brother." The older man sighed with reflexive relief, for it had been over four months since he had heard the younger's voice. That horrid accent was still clearly in evidence, but it no longer mattered; only that he was on English soil again, to stay.

On the other hand…the older Holmes did not look forward to telling his brother the news that he doubted the Doctor had told him yet in the excitement. But Sherlock would never forgive himself if the shock of hearing it caused an emotional response from him he would regret, in the Doctor's presence. Brothers spared each other the embarrassment of such uncontrolled outbursts, and this would certainly be no exception.

"You have the agent?"

"Secured on the couch in the other room. He has not been harmed, more's the pity, though he is liable to be in rare form when he wakes from that beastly chloroform."

"And the papers?"

"I have the combination to the safe, and will bring everything with me. Your people can sort out what is relevant and what is irrelevant."

"Are you all right, Sherlock?" the older man asked, drumming his fingers on the desktop in an uncharacteristic fit of nerves.

"Quite all right, Mycroft. Never better, actually, now that I am able to return to my life as it was before this job of yours came my way," the younger's voice nattered cheerfully through the telephone line. "I can hardly wait to get back to my cottage, and start up the hives again…perhaps I can convince Watson to give up that infernal practice of his for good now; I should hate to see him remain in London when the Zeppelins begin…"

"Sherlock –"

"At any rate, he said the house was relatively undamaged, so that is surprisingly good news…."

"Sherlock –"

"And I believe that I can convince him to –"

"Sherlock!" the older man bellowed, loudly enough that the secretary jumped and nearly knocked over his typewriter, looking over at his employer with a combination cringe and query.

"What is it, Mycroft? Do hurry, I need to get Watson in here and we must peruse the contents of this safe."

"Sherlock…" The elder Holmes massaged his temples wearily, choosing his words with care. "Brother, what _exactly_ have the two of you talked about this afternoon?"

"Anything and everything," Sherlock replied cheerfully, his voice fairly dancing with lightheartedness. "We've an enormous amount of catching up to do, you know, brother. It's been over two years, after all."

_Two years in which a stint in the United States had done much to eradicate all traces of British phlegmatic composure in you_, the elder thought in distaste at his brother's blithe prattling. Aloud, the man merely sighed and said slowly, "Sherlock…there is something you need to know."

"Which is? You are taking rather a long time to get to the point, Mycroft. What is the matter?" The cheery note of exultation in the younger brother's voice had faded into a suspicious razor-edge. "Has something gone afoul in the game?"

"The _game_, as you call it, Sherlock, has been won, as your success tonight would indicate," Mycroft Holmes sighed wearily, leaning forward in his chair and resting his ample chin upon his hand. "But I would not be making so many rapid plans for your future, brother."

"Huh?"

The elder cringed at the Americanism but dismissed the breach of English in favour of more important matters. "Sherlock, I am certain he has been attempting to discover the best way to tell you –"

"Tell me what? Who? For heaven's sake, Mycroft, do stop speaking in riddles and put the matter in the open; you do a simply horrible job of preparatory work in steeling another for news. What the devil are you trying to tell me?"

The elder Holmes took a long breath slowly through his nose, exhaling ponderously and then sighing aloud. "Sherlock, the Doctor has re-enlisted. Royal Army Medical Corps."

Dead silence smothered the connection for a long moment, in which the elder loosened his collar and glanced at his watch. One and a half hours.

"I beg your pardon." The absolute blank disbelief in his brother's voice made the elder wince, knowing what was coming from long experience with Sherlock's moods.

"I am sorry, Sherlock. Frankly I have no idea what the man is thinking," the older sibling growled testily. "But I've seen the papers myself; he really did re-enlist. I hope they have the sense to keep him relatively close to -"

"He did _**what**_?!" The line abruptly exploded with the vehemence of the younger man's exclamation of disbelief and borderline panic. "You cannot be serious! Mycroft, if this is your idea of a joke –"

"Sherlock, for the love of heaven!" the elder snapped. "I may be forced into mental and emotional detachment in this business of mine, but even _I_ have more tact than to play so horrible a prank upon you. Lower your voice, there's a good fellow; I am well on my way to a migraine as it is."

"Mycroft! He – you can't mean – but – no, he _would_ do such a foolhardy, idiotic, _imbecilic_ – ohh, I am going to _kill_ him…"

Mycroft winced, hearing his brother's tone speed in the space of five seconds from outraged to bewildered and then to abjectly miserable, until it was no more than a fiery whisper at the tail end of the incoherently-strung words. There was a creaking of chair springs at the other end of the connection; obviously his brother had sat down quite hurriedly beside the telephone.

"Sherlock…" the man sighed, wishing to heaven things did not have to be so for men who had already done their parts for King and country. "I am sorry, brother mine. But would you have expected anything less from him?"

"…No," came the rejoinder, almost unintelligible through being choked into an already shaky connection. "Oh, dear heaven…what is he _thinking_? This is – this is going to be ugly, Mycroft, unlike anything we've ever seen…dear Lord, he could be _killed_!" The pain-suffocated whisper was barely audible, and yet clear as crystal to the older man's sensitive ear.

"Do not borrow trouble, Sherlock," the older admonished sternly, though even his steeled heart went out to his brother, whose jubilation at his return to what he had imagined to be the old England was fast dissipating into the horror of reality. "Focus on the present, for your mission is not over yet. You must get those papers to London before dawn, Sherlock."

The elderly man heard a dull mutter that sounded suspiciously like "to blazes with the papers," but a moment later a hollow acquiescence filled the receiver.

"We shall be on the road within the hour," the younger stated flatly, his voice reverting to an unshakable granite that only one man in the world could dissolve now. "Have the Yard and your offices in readiness."

"Sherlock –"

"Not now, Mycroft," the other snapped coldly. "As you said, the mission is not over. I shall see you before morning. Good-night."

Mycroft Holmes began a quiet remonstration but received only a dull click as the line went dead. The elderly man sighed unhappily and replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle. His eyes flicked to meet those of the young secretary, warm with sympathy and devoid of that excitement of earlier.

"Would you like me to get you some tea, Mr. Holmes?"

* * *

Seventy miles away, outside a small villa on the English coast, two men stood on a verandah, listening to the calm and peaceful sounds of a night wind and light surf, a mocking calm before the worst storm to break over the world struck that night with enough force to frighten even the strongest of men.

After a few minutes of silence, the one spoke, softly and gently. "You know, don't you."

"Yes." The answer was curt, terse, and accompanied by no other motion than the unsteady striking of a match, one that wavered too badly to light the cigarette held between his thin lips.

His companion quietly offered a match of his own, with a less shaking hand, already resigned; as usual embracing the changes in the world rather than hiding from them.

"You…weren't expecting it, were you." The older man sighed, his eyes cast disconsolately down upon the water below them.

"No." Again, a one-word answer; more would be impossible to voice without betrayal of a voice barely under control and fast losing that small ground.

"I'm sorry…but you know it must be done, Holmes," the other whispered. "I need to do my part, just as you've done yours."

"You have _already_ done yours," the detective snapped viciously, stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette and angrily tossing the end into the lightly churning sea. "There are men a third your age who should be following that example, not you doing it yet again." Holmes furiously dashed a sleeve across his eyes and leant both forearms upon the railing, scowling blackly at the water in lieu of throttling the man standing, as always, beside him.

His companion laid a hesitant hand upon his shoulder. Not being shrugged off, he finally spoke, the words floating on the salt breeze in gentle, soothing rhythm. "You know I can't just stand by and allow that, any more than you could do the same two years ago, Holmes."

"I…I know," the detective whispered hollowly. "I just thought – I mean –"

"You thought when you came back it would all be like it used to be," the Doctor finished softly, and his hand tightened for a moment on his friend's shaking shoulder.

"Yes," Holmes breathed, lowering his head and closing his eyes for a long moment. "Two years…all I could think about was when it would be over…"

"But it isn't over," the Doctor pointed out with infinite gentleness. "And it won't be, not for a long time, Holmes."

The detective slipped from under his friend's grasp and walked wordlessly to the end of the verandah, looking out over the lights of Harwich. It was nearing eleven – the ultimatum would expire in less than an hour, and they must begin the trip back to a London that would never again in the history of the world be the same as the city he so loved.

He looked back, and saw the Doctor leaning tiredly against one of the support posts, a hand clenched on the wooden railing in a white-knuckled grip. Something inside the detective twinged sharply, constricting in his throat and deep within his chest, and he moved slowly back to his former position beside his friend.

The detective stood a pace behind his companion and vented a small sigh, his hands buried in his trouser pockets to hide both the shaking and the clenched fists.

"When…do you leave?" he asked in a low tone.

The Doctor shifted, half-turning to look at him. "I don't know yet…the end of the month, probably."

Three weeks, that was all.

Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes for a long moment, desperately reeling in the control that had sustained thus long in a dangerous two-year case, hoping it would continue to hold him up until he was out of sight and sound of anyone. Still…if this were the beginning of the end…things should – needed to – be said, vocalised, in case he never got the chance again…

"Are you going to be all right, my dear chap?" the Doctor asked gently, his soft eyes flitting carefully over the stiff and rigid form of his friend.

The detective blinked and nodded calmly, but his companion was not fooled – could not be, after so many years of reading the man's mannerisms and words for what they meant, not what they appeared to be.

"You are so quiet," the Doctor murmured uneasily. "Haven't you…anything to say?"

_Not until I can do so and still remain in control_, Holmes thought miserably, biting his tongue until sharp pain flooded his nerves before the words emerged. Watson sighed, his head slumping in weary dejection, and he turned to look back out over the choppy ocean.

"Just one thing," the detective suddenly spoke, moving to stand beside his companion and studiously looking down at the water below. "Watson…you are undoubtedly the bravest man I have ever met – and the most selfless."

The Doctor's eyes momentarily widened at the open and obviously very sincere compliment, and he cast a sidelong glance at his companion in some wonderment.

"The two together do not a good combination make for an army medic," Holmes continued, his voice losing its ice edge and softening despite his efforts to remain chilled and calm. "Watson…for my sake if not your own…be careful?" It was a plea, not an admonishment, for he had no right to ask such a thing of a doctor, or a soldier, and he knew the fact.

Watson's eyes glistened, and he straightened up to look at the pensive detective. "My dear Holmes," said he with a small smile, "I've every intention of returning when this affair is over with. I have to publish this crowning case of yours, you know; I can't leave my reading public like this without knowing what you've done for England, now can I?"

That garnered a derisive snort, and a lessening of the tension in the detective's taut jaw as he relaxed in a countering smile, putting away the sobriety of personal matters in the face of a more serious affair – the clock he could see through the window in Von Bork's study showed two minutes of eleven. There would be another day, later in the month, to continue this discussion. For now, London and Whitehall, and a sleepless night – the first of many to come over the next few endless years.

"Well, then, Watson," Holmes said quietly, turning toward the small Ford, which still rocked back and forth from the struggles of the squirming German agent secured within. "In that case, let us finish this mission for your precious notebook together, shall we?"

"Always," the Doctor breathed fervently.


	12. Chapter 12

_This is for __**Protector of the Gray Fortress**__, who is undoubtedly one of the best friends I have ever had the good fortune to make._

* * *

I had finished with my last patient for the day and was putting away my medical supplies when my desk telephone shrilled loudly. As the silence of a post-thunderstorm summer evening had been peaceful and without interruption until that moment, the sudden clamour startled me and I unfortunately knocked the receiver off the hook. I bit back an exclamation and fumbled to catch the infernal machine as it clanked upon my polished desk-top.

"Hallo?" I answered somewhat breathlessly, hoping the caller had not heard my fumble.

"Having a few problems with the instrument, Doctor?" an amused voice inquired.

I sighed and, seating myself, leant back in preparation for a lengthy conversation. "Yes, well…you startled me, is all," I protested somewhat lamely.

"This from the man who could sleep and/or write the novel of the century through a half-hour of my indoor revolver practice?"

I smiled wistfully. "That was a rather long time ago, old fellow."

"Yes, indeed..."

I heard the quiet murmur, one with all traces of amusement having fled on the instant, and frowned. "Is everything all right, Holmes?"

"Yes, of course," came the immediate response. Too immediate. "Why would it not be?"

"I'm sure I have no idea," I replied, shoving a mess of papers into the drawer to my left and slamming the thing closed. I scowled crossly as a few of the corners stuck out of the jammed drawer. "You just sound a bit off tonight."

An injurious sniffle. "I have a cold."

"Besides that. Are you drinking plenty of hot liquids?"

"Yes, _Doctor_," he enunciated in obvious exasperation. "And sleeping rather more than I should, and not going out when it is damp in the mornings, and eating properly, and brushing my teeth –"

"I don't believe I have _ever_ told you to do that, Holmes," I interjected dryly.

"Only because I have always done it on my own," he grumbled, though in good-naturedness and not real irritation.

"And you're deflected my questions, rather neatly I might add." I frowned into the mouthpiece, knowing he could mentally see my expressions in my tone and voice. "What's wrong, my dear fellow?"

"Nothing."

I sighed tolerantly and tried again to shut the drawer upon my papers, only accomplishing crinkling a few of them alone the edges. Lovely. "Obviously not."

"I…" he trailed off uncertainly, hesitating for a moment. I gave up on the papers and leaned my head into my cupped hand, my elbow on the desk, waiting patiently until he began again. "I don't exactly know," he finally muttered.

"Are you ill? Other than the cold, I mean?"

"No, no, nothing like that…just…well, just down a bit I suppose," he finally admitted hollowly, for he knew after so many years that it was best to be frank with me rather than have the truth slowly dragged from protesting lips.

"Well being ill does not help that any," I agreed. "You're depressed, is that it? And no idea why?"

"In essence, I suppose," he muttered, and obviously through his teeth as if not wanting the information to be brought into the light.

I opened my mouth to reply but waited until he had finished a series of staccato sneezes to begin. "Bless you. I'm sorry, old chap. Why do you think you're feeling this way? Have you been sleeping poorly again?"

"Not every night…"

"But some of them," I finished patiently. "And let me guess, you have grown a bit tired of your bees?"

I heard a drawn-out whistling sigh. "Just a bit," he admitted. "I've nothing to _do_, Watson…and no one to talk to. You know as well as – better than – I do, how poorly I react to being bored out of my mind. I am going mad, in all seriousness."

I glanced at my watch. "I can't get down there tonight, Holmes; the train left two hours ago."

"No, no, I wouldn't want you to," cried he in dismal horror. "I just…I don't _know_."

"Well, why don't you get comfortable, and we will just talk?"

"…I don't _feel_ like talking." The mutter was low, very low and dismal, but I heard it nonetheless.

Why in the world had he called me in that case, if he did not feel like talking?

But my mind knew better than to voice the question aloud, settling for a safe non-committaly answer in its stead. "All right," I said slowly, calmly.

My mind cast itself automatically back to days in Baker Street where he would lounge around on the couch, whether injecting himself with that liquid poison of his or not, depressed and morose and sometimes given to uncharacteristic outbursts of temper or emotion that even he could not control or even begin to understand. I could recall countless occasions when I had never seen a more miserable creature than my friend, curled up under a blanket and staring vacantly at the walls, wishing for something – anything – to leap out to engage his attention for even an instant of blessed distraction; or sometimes just sitting there, shaking with repressed emotions that he knew not how to control or even release in the manner of the average human beings.

And then it hit me – that each of those times, the lowest points of his exceptional existence, he had remained in the sitting room; he had never, not once, retired to his bedroom unless he intended to stay there sleeping for a few days at a stretch. When he was merely depressive and unutterably wretched, he always remained in our shared sitting room. Where people were.

Where _I_ was.

My lips slowly curved in a sad half-smile, both in nostalgic memory and in a fervent wish that I could be there in person to help him now through this new bout of despondency; he sounded completely and unspeakably miserable.

"Holmes," I began with well-deserved caution.

"What."

"Would you mind if I worked on some paperwork while we're here on the line? I have a bit to get done before I may retire for the night," I said, carefully regulating my tone into strict matter-of-factness.

I was not sure if the tiny breath of air that floated into the receiver was a sniffle because of his cold, or a sigh of relief. "Certainly, Doctor."

I doodled aimlessly on the margins of my ledger, absently wondering which story I was supposed to be finishing for the _Strand_ magazine, for a moment or two before I attempted it again. "I went for a walk in Hyde Park this evening, Holmes, after the rain had stopped."

"Did you indeed." I recognised that tone of polite tolerated boredom and knew pursuing that angle was not the best idea. The next sentence confirmed it. "Do us both a favour, Watson, and pray do not detail to me all about the birds and flowers and children chasing the ducks, there's a good chap?"

"I was only going to say I wished you could have been there with me," I replied quietly.

I heard a muffled _ergh_, though I believed it to be directed more to the fusillade of sneezes that nearly deafened me rather than aimed at my sentiment. Still, with Sherlock Holmes one never knew.

"My dear chap, you sound perfectly dreadful," I ventured kindly. "You should get some menthol from that village apothecary and inhale the vapours before you try to sleep at night; it will help with the congestion."

"Doctor, will you _please_ come off it for a while at least?" he suddenly exploded into the telephone, his voice ringing with exasperated vexation.

I raised an eyebrow, slightly stung, until I realised that somewhere, buried so deeply he was choking, in that depressed, dejectedly miserable voice I could hear the dear friend I knew so well, crying out in a child-like plea for some type of comfort; and barring that, at least understanding and patience.

Surely I could manage to give at least one of the three.

"Just as you like, Holmes," I replied softly.

The silence that settled darkly, stiflingly, over the line after that was so thick that for a while I wondered if perhaps he had just left the telephone off the receiver and had taken himself off to sulk. A small stifled sneeze soon proved otherwise. He was merely sitting there; I could picture him curled up miserably in his chair before the fire, the telephone cord stretched to its breaking point, just huddled up under an afghan and staring miserably at the flames, alone and unhappy with himself and his inability to break free of the mire of black depression.

Knowing better than to attempt another conversation commencement while he was in that miserable condition, I instead followed the sudden idea that had popped into my head. I began to hum softly, some tune I had heard long ago in an operetta, and set about moving around my desk with the receiver resting upon my shoulder, stacking up my papers and books and returning supplies to their proper locations.

My organizing took about ten minutes, and then I finally returned to my chair, the tune trailing off at the end of a chorus.

"Holmes?" I asked softly.

"Yes?" He was whispering, either out of pure darkling misery or because he dared not raise his voice for fear I would be able to tell he was shaking with emotion. I did not have to hear him to be aware of such; after all this time I should hope I knew my Holmes well enough to know exactly what his reactions were, even without the benefit of seeing him.

"Do you need anything?" I inquired, making my tone gentle but not condescending and definitely not clinical.

I heard a muffled hoarse sigh. "No," he responded dully, and there was a small shifting on the other end of the line as he changed positions.

"You know I would give anything to be able to help you, my dear fellow…"

I waited helplessly for the silence to dissipate from the black cloud that hung over the both of us, spanning a distance of many miles with its relentless misery.

Finally he answered, his voice scarcely above a whisper but even so more controlled than it had been. "You already have."


	13. Chapter 13

_The weekly writing prompt on the Watsons_Woes LiveJournal Community this week was simply Watson + a cat - so here is my answer. For **Endgegner07:**_

* * *

Surprisingly enough, when my telephone rang this beautiful spring evening I had just finished my work for the day. No patients were calling for my help, as it should be on a gorgeous night like this, and a gentle rain was tripping lightly on the roof over my head, steadily thrumming the world into harmony. Even the noise of motor-cars and shouting people in the street outside had retreated, a cessation of hostilities in honour of the peace of spring.

I corked my ink bottle with one hand (after so long, I still enjoyed writing via the old-fashioned method) and reached for the telephone receiver with the other, stretching myself with a satisfied yawn as I lifted it.

"Hallo?"

"Are you busy?"

"Good to hear you too, Holmes," I chuckled, leaning back in my chair with my slippers upon the corner of my desk.

"Yes, yes." I could almost hear his hand waving impatiently at me. "I need your professional opinion on something, Doctor."

I raised an eyebrow before remembering he could not see it. "Something medical?"

"Good heavens, no. Something literary."

That arrested my attention. "What, are you writing another of those awful monographs? What's it to be this time, _Upon the One Hundred and Fifteen Common Household Uses for Bees-wax, with Coloured Photographs Illustrating the Differences in Comb Structure_?"

"Very _good_, Watson!" I winced at the acerbic sarcasm eating its way through the wires, but he continued in a lighter, softer tone that I had come to thoroughly anticipate and enjoy over the many conversations held over this instrument. "You had a light work load today, didn't you?"

I frowned. "Yes, as a matter of fact I did…why do you ask?"

"Just that you usually are nearly dead on your feet talking to me by this time of a Thursday evening," came the response, even quieter. "I am glad to hear the change."

Sighing, I smiled at last. "Yes, well, I am rather pleased to have an evening completely free."

"Excellent!" That time I could positively hear the grin in his tone, and I laughed and settled in for a long and pleasant conversation.

"No, it is not another monograph, Doctor," he informed me, sniffing injuriously into the telephone. "A pretty little business occurred down here only a week or so ago, and I should like to try my hand at scribbling it down."

Oh, lovely. As if his _Adventure of the Blanched Soldier_ hadn't been hard enough to sell to the _Strand_. "All right…" I began cautiously. "How exactly are you wanting my help?"

"Well…" I heard a small noise of discontent, and silence for a moment. Then he began afresh. "I had Stackhurst read it after I wrote it – you remember him? Because the man who was killed was one of his tutors at the Gables…at any rate, I had him read it."

Well, the man did possess a degree of common sense, and I rather liked him. "And?" I prompted, curious.

Silence. Then, "He said he'd recently read more interesting trigonometry textbooks," Holmes muttered reluctantly.

I started to snicker and then hastily clapped a hand over my mouth to muffle the sound – but I had been heard, and after a growled "_Et tu_, Watson?" my poor friend joined me in a fit of rueful laughter.

"Oh, dear," I finally gasped, rubbing my eyes with my free hand and giving vent to a final chuckle. "I – I am sorry, Holmes. But I always _told_ you it was not as easy as you liked to think!"

"Yes, I suppose I deserved that, and more," said he, harrumphing loudly into my ear. "But what am I to _do_ about it?"

"Besides turn it into a monograph?" I asked wickedly.

"Watson, I swear before heaven…"

"All right, all right," I chuckled, for I did not want him to hang up the receiver. "You needn't get so miffed about the matter. But really, I cannot very well help you with it over the telephone – why don't you come up to London?"

"Why don't you come down to Sussex?"

"I asked first. And besides, I just went, two weeks ago."

"Sixteen days," he corrected forlornly, and in that tone I never had been able to withstand for long, even after some of the worst deceptions of his life.

I exhaled in a long sigh, and craned my head round as my ajar study door creaked open. "I suppose I could come down tomorrow…though I shall charge you the train fare as my consultation fee."

"Done!"

I laughed, and heard his gleeful clapping to confirm the real reason for his calling tonight. And he thought he was a master of deceit. Honestly.

Small padding feet silently slunk up to my chair, and I looked down into two wide yellow eyes, whose pleading was another thing I could not resist.

I lowered my legs, and the second occupant of my study, a sleek black-and-grey striped tabby cat with white feet, hopped eagerly up onto them, rubbing her head under my free hand and purring like my motor-car just after I had managed to start it.

The receiver squawked indignantly in my ear. "Watson. What the devil is that noise?"

"Hmm?" I asked absently, scratching the kitty under her white chin and eliciting a louder purr of appreciation.

"That noise – is your stomach growling?"

"What? Oh…no, Holmes. That's…er…that's my cat," I explained, feeling my ears tinge warmly.

Dead silence. "Your _cat_."

"Mmhm. I haven't decided what to name her yet, though." The cat meowed plaintively when I paused in stroking her silky fur, and I smiled and continued the motion as she curled up in my lap, flexing claws gently into my trousers.

"You got a _cat_."

"I just said so, Holmes. Not a very logical deduction, is it?"

I could fairly see him planting his head into his hand. "My friend, you are indicating old age – living alone with only a cat for company?" he moaned, sing-song. "Watson…"

"She's a very nice cat, Holmes," I retorted, purposely infusing my voice with an offended slant.

I covered the receiver to hide my laughing as he immediately began backpedaling. "Erm…yes, of course…I have no doubt it is, Doctor," he muttered hastily. "But – Watson, why did you go out and get a _cat_, for heaven's sake??"

I stopped petting the tabby and covered a yawn. "Because for one thing, the poor thing showed up in the street outside, drenched and starving, after nearly getting run over by a cab a few nights ago."

"So naturally, you took the little devil inside, fed it, treated it, and now it won't leave."

"Naturally."

"Of course." He snorted, and a moment later we were both chuckling.

"Besides," I added after an amused moment, my voice softening, "I enjoy having something around the house that is _alive_, besides the staff; these nights get very long and lonely, you know."

A long sigh trickled through the line. "Then in that case I have no doubt he will be a good thing for you."

"She."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's a she."

"Whatever, Watson. It is all the same to me."

"I doubt she would agree with you."

"Give the little beast my apologies in that case."

I glanced down at the animal curled in my lap, and she raised her head, perking ears in my direction. Mischievously, I grinned into the receiver and then said, "Holmes says he is sorry for insulting you," quite seriously, down toward the barely-interested animal.

"I did _not_ mean that literally, and you well know it, Doctor," Holmes, greatly amused, spoke into my ear.

_Mrrrrrow?_ The cat asked, butting her head against my arm.

"What was that?"

"I don't know; I am no expert on interpreting forms of feline communication. Isn't that right, hmm?" I asked the purring animal in a coaxing tone, as I patted the shorter fur along her head, scratching behind one silky ear for a moment.

Holmes snorted audibly. "You, my dear Watson, are in twenty years going to turn into a doddering old man who talks to his animals as if they were human and tells them stories about the 'good old days back in my time' with Sherlock Holmes."

_Mrrrroooooow?_ The cat mewed, batting at the cord of the telephone receiver in curiosity. _Mrrrow?_

"Stop that," I scolded, removing her paw from the cord.

"Stop what?" Holmes asked, confused.

The tabby placed both paws (and ten claws) on (and through) my waistcoat and yowled plaintively up at my face.

"Watson, what on earth –"

"Ouch! Stop that, kitty!" I cried, wishing now that I had named the little devil.

Holmes's snort of laughter nearly deafened me. "'Stop that, _kitty'_?" he asked in amusement.

"Yes – ouch!" I unsnagged five of the claws, but the paw remained. I increased the volume of my voice to be heard over the cries for attention. "She – " I raised it a bit more. "She doesn't have a name yet!"

"Noisy little thing, isn't she?" he observed dryly, though I could tell he was grinning.

_Rrrrrrrooooow!! _Kitty suddenly yowled again at me, ears back in annoyance that I was not dropping all to pet her, and swiped at the telephone receiver.

"I think she wants to say hallo to you, Holmes," I informed him with a smirk.

"Erm…" he trailed off, obviously wondering if I were serious, and if not, should he make fun of me. "Doctor…"

"Say hallo to the nice bee-farmer, Kitty," I said, holding the receiver down toward the animal.

She gave it one disinterested eye, and then when Holmes's voice squawked out an awkward "Watson?" hissed ferociously at it, ears flat against her head. Before I could recover from my surprise she had growled, swiped at the receiver with one splay-clawed paw, and then streaked from the room as if the neighbour's greyhound were after her.

"Well!" I snorted, reclaiming my telephone. "I suppose that she did not like your voice, Holmes."

If actions could be heard through telephone wires, then his rolling of the eyes would have deafened me for life. "Watson, honestly. You really are going to keep that thing?"

"Why not? You keep bees."

"My bees are my _hobby_, not _pets_!"

"I fail to see the difference," I replied, yawning and replacing my feet upon the desk. Oh…now my trousers were covered in grey and black hairs. Lovely.

"My bees do not demand my constant attention, do not require me to feed and water them, do not need me to dump a sandbox, do not leave hairs all over anything and everything in my house, do not jump on me when I come in the door…though they do sting, confound the little blighters…do not – Watson, are you even listening to me?"

I _was_ listening, and smiling off into space as the rain pattered on the windowpanes, just watching the world go by in watery, shimmering, gas-and-electric-lit splendour – like a living, breathing, watercolour painting. A beautiful world, even if Holmes had not liked the progression of it and had retreated before it accordingly.

With new things to discover in town and people to serve with what abilities heaven had granted me; a dear, dear friend to visit on the weekends; and a small living creature who actually noticed when I was home and was not, to come back to – what more could a man want in this life?


End file.
